Broken Angels
by Water-smurf
Summary: It's started again. They'll never be given rest. God will be born again... but not if their father has anything to say about it.
1. Chapter 1

The alley was dark, shelves lying in uneven broken shambles, barely attached to the walls anymore, and bowling balls and pins lay scattered across the filthy floors. The building creaked ominously occasionally, but it was the safest place he'd found so far.

Kaagor sat hidden under one of the tables in front of the old bowling lanes, about three tables away from the rotten pizza box he had seen. He had hoped for some food—dwarven stomachs, along with their livers, were stalwart things—but there was nothing there except what used to be crusts. That box could have been weeks old for all he knew.

The alley creaked again and the radio on his hip he had found burst into static, making him flinch.

A shadow over the dusty, cracked windows above him fell on the glass before a hand pressed to it, scratching at the webs.

He tensed, growling, and rolled his ax in his hand. No way he'd go down without a fight.

"Who are you?"

He jumped in surprise, hitting his head on the table with a curse, and jerked out from under it, brandishing his ax.

"Where did you get that?"

Kraagor paused. The static at his hip fell silent.

It was a little human girl sitting on top of the table he had been under. She was pale and disturbingly slim, but she had pretty blue eyes and long blond hair pulled in a ponytail. Oddly enough, she didn't look scared or hurt. That didn't seem possible in this world.

"What are you doing here? This isn't a place for a little girl."

"Why isn't it?" She frowned, crossing her arms and swinging her legs over the edge of the table, uncaring that she may kick him.

"Monsters." Kraagor looked out the cracked windows, though he remembered why he hadn't before a moment later. The fog outside was too thick—he couldn't see anything. All he knew was that the hand had disappeared.

He looked back at the little girl, stifling a sigh. He had to protect her. There was no way he'd let a kid run around a place like this, but he wasn't sure if he could even protect himself, let alone her.

"Huh?" She frowned, pushing off of the table and landing on her feet. "Monsters? Don't be stupid. Everyone knows monsters aren't real."

Kraagor paused, then looked at the girl, frowning in confusion. "…You don't see them?"

"See what? Are you crazy?" The girl frowned, scuffing her shoes on the floor and putting her hands on her hips. "Rachel told me to not talk to crazy people."

Kraagor glanced at the window again, then at the girl. "Why don't you come with me? It's dangerous here. Little kids shouldn't run around alone."

She arched an eyebrow, taking a step back. "I don't think so. I don't go with strangers."

"I'm not going to hurt you."

The general hum of static at his hip burst to life.

The door to the bowling alley started to rattle and something groaned loudly behind it.

Kraagor jumped, brandishing his ax and running to the girl, grabbing her arm. "Stay behind me!"

"Let go, you weirdo!"

She stomped on his foot, crunching down on his toes, making him recoil and wheel back with a surprised curse.

She immediately tore her arm from his grip.

"You brat! You'll get killed!"

"Bye!"

The girl darted past the alleys to a broken down door tucked in the back, glancing towards him only to smirk before running through.

Kraagor swore, shaking out his bruised foot, and made a movement to go after her.

The front door crashed open in a shower of splinters.

He looked up.

His throat closed.

"Oh gods…"

* * *

Pain exploded in her temple and she snapped awake, her mouth open to scream but no sound coming out, and there was a weight on her head, holding her down.

Terror gripped her chest and her eyes rolled, her breath whistling between her lips, dizziness grabbing her head. "H-help me…"

"Sleep."

The weight on her head put more pressure on her brow, warmth curling out into her skin, and her eyes rolled again, pulling her into a dreamless sleep.

There was a long while of silence, and her twin in the bed across from her didn't stir.

The man sitting on the edge of her bed let out a soft sigh of relief, taking his hand off the girl's forehead and leaning away from her, needing to take a breather. The darkness had taken an unprecedented toll on him, even in the context of the last several nights he had invaded. He'd forgotten what it was like to actually feel overtaxed, and all this from _dreams…_

He wondered what it was like for Kraagor to be wondering around that… whatever that place was.

Girard glanced weakly over at the door, closing his eyes when he realized that no one was coming in. Under normal circumstances, he would have thought nothing of hiding his activities with illusions, since he was so strong at this point that there was only a select handful of people who could sense anything past it. Soon Kim happened to be one of the select handful, and the surprising strength of the dark energy this night may have been powerful enough to be sensed past his illusions.

Though apparently, the stress of the situation had actually taken a toll on the great Soon Kim. He was sleeping heavier than Girard had ever known him to, and the constant Evil that covered the kids like clouds of poison was probably much worse for paladins than it was for an illusionist.

He briefly wondered if possessing so much Evil inside of them made the children count as Evil. How ironic would that be? Soon would fall just for associating with his own kids.

He shook his head, glancing down at the restless girl beside him. With her eyes closed, it was so much easier to look at her.

He stood up, pulling the blanket she had knocked off in her struggles back over her gently shivering body, and padded out of the room.

A sheen of sweat thickened on Young's body, the chest of drawers across from the foot of her bed rattling on its stubby legs violently. Tai lay face-down on his bed under the window, unnaturally still and oblivious, something on the back of his hand shimmering.

A blue and red rune on Young's forehead appeared, glowing softly, and the rattling ceased.

* * *

"Good morning."

Young jumped a little at the voice even though she must have known he was there.

Soon frowned, putting his cup of tea down on the table. The girl looked even unhealthier that morning. The circles under her eyes resembled those of a raccoon, stark against unnaturally pale skin, and he could swear she was twitching a little.

"…Morning, sir."

She ducked her head, her tangled hair falling in her face, and shuffled towards the overhead cabinets. Her hands shook with exhaustion when she reached up and took a mug out, standing still for a while before jerking, as if remembering what she wanted to do, and then she went to the stove where a kettle was whistling. She reached for the metal handle without putting anything on her hands.

"Careful."

In a blink, Soon was besides her, holding her wrist away from the burning hot kettle. "Sit down. I can prepare it for you."

She looked up at him, and again, he was struck by her face, especially her eyes. There was a lot of himself in her features, but he saw his wife as well. The noble delicacy of her jaw. The slenderness of her neck. Her lashes, her shoulders, the way she tucked her hair behind her ear and bit her lip when she concentrated… but her eyes…

Every time he looked at her or Tai, he was reminded of Mijung, but every time he saw her eyes, he remembered who had fathered them.

He wasn't sure how he felt about that idea.

"…I can make tea."

Her voice was distant, still in whatever nightmare that had tormented her the night before. The dark energy that always followed her was thicker today, choking like smoke and curling around her body like a malignant cancer he couldn't for the life of him destroy. Her very presence in the room made it hard to breathe, but he didn't care: he just wanted her to be near.

"You were about to burn yourself. The kettle is very hot." He gently nudged her towards the table and she absently sat down. "I'll make you breakfast. What would you like?"

"…" Young propped her head on her fists, eyes foggy with sleep. "I'm not hungry."

"You should try to eat anyway." Soon kept his expression smooth, but he was worried. He had adopted the children two weeks ago, and since then, Young's health seemed to have declined, if that were at all possible. He didn't dare try introducing them to his world at this stage, but he couldn't help but feel increasingly agitated by how little progress it felt like he was making, even with Girard's help. Or, well, Girard's brand of help. The constant tension between him wasn't making things easier, and he didn't think Girard was here to help him, but he couldn't help but be glad that he wasn't completely on his own and his ex-comrade had been okay (reluctantly so) to the children despite his grudge.

"I'm not hungry."

Soon used a thick cloth to lift the kettle and pour the boiling water into the mug. "What kind of tea do you want, then?"

"Earl Gray, please. No sugar."

He glanced over at her, arching an eyebrow. That was the same thing he had drank every day since he was her age.

He looked away before she noticed it, however. It wouldn't do for her to see him staring.

"I see that your nightmares disturbed you again last night."

He was glad that Girard and Tai were late sleepers, or that he and Young were early birds. If her brother had been present, he wouldn't be able to have a proper conversation with her. What was especially worrying him was that, usually, she woke up within minutes of him, around six, to go for a morning jog, and she hadn't this time. She didn't give it acknowledgement, but he of all people recognized the significance in that.

"I'm fine." She shrugged evasively, looking away and running a hand through her hair. She was more compliant than her brother and certainly easier to deal with, but she seemed to share at least a mild form of his distrust and secretiveness. It didn't escape his notice how tense she got when he or Girard touched her or got too close, so he supposed that she wasn't interested in sharing more of the nightmares with him.

"If you're going to lie, I suggest making it plausible." Soon put a mug of tea in front of the girl. "Don't drink it immediately. It's still hot."

She nodded absently, her eyelids drooping. "You wouldn't be interested in nightmares anyway."

"On the contrary, I would." Soon sat across from her, sipping his tea quietly. "But I won't pry if you don't want to talk."

"…" She looked away, closing her eyes as though she would fall asleep right there at the table. "How did your wife die?"

He paused for a beat.

"She was murdered."

Her eyes snapped open and she looked right at him. "…Really?"

"That's what I know." He laced his fingers together on the table, cocking his head. Tai looked more like their mother than Young did, but he still thought of Mijung when he looked at her.

"Do you know who did it?"

Soon shook his head.

"I know what put her in the position to be killed. I don't know who did it." He took a sip of his tea, keeping his feelings from his face. The ache in his heart, so much sharper since he had found out about the gods' deception, gave him a pang mixed with guilt. "She was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked…"

The slightest smile twitched at the corner of his lips, his eyes focusing on the girl again. The ache eased again, if only a little. "No, don't be sorry. I was surprised you didn't ask sooner. I would like to have a relationship with you and your brother beyond being a guardian: that entitles you to the right to ask me what you want. I don't mind."

Young still looked ashamed and she averted her eyes, blowing on her tea before taking a small sip, wincing when it was still hot.

"You don't have to be afraid of me, Young, but I understand if you are." He glanced at the clock, noting that it was seven-thirty. "I suggest you wake up your brother and get ready for school. Take a snack of some sort if you don't want to eat breakfast or you'll be hungry later on."

She looked at him, then gave a tentative smile. "Okay."

She finished her tea and put her cup away in the dishwasher before scurrying away to get her brother. Soon looked down at the table, frowning. He'd have to retreat to his meditation room before eight. Girard usually came to the kitchen then, and the two men were making every effort to not actually encounter each other, which was a little difficult since they were sharing a house in a foreign world which neither of them had a clue how to traverse.

He swirled his tea in his cup and sighed softly, standing up and pushing his chair back. He had to plan out the day. He and Girard were trying to find out more about this 'Silent Hill' place, but he wasn't going to fool himself into thinking they had the same motivation. If he wanted to find a way to exorcise the darkness from Young, he had to do it himself.

Young…

He had a daughter.

He sighed softly before finishing his now-cold tea and rinsing out the cup. He really needed some time to meditate.

He left the room before Girard could wake.

* * *

"Cheryl? Is that what you're going by?"

The woman gave him a tired scowl, pushing her dyed blond hair from her face. They sat in an isolated booth in a corner while the usual activity of the noontime diner bustled around them, but nothing about those dark eyes were cheerful. Just looking at them made Girard feel like the room had dropped ten degrees.

"Yeah. The name my dad gave me. But I doubt you asked me here just to talk about what I'm called." She picked at the toast she had ordered, not even taking a bite. "Get on with it. You mentioned that place."

"S—"

"Don't say the name."

The edge in her tone reminded him of the many shell-shocked seniors he had encountered during his campaign with the Scribble, only she wasn't a senior. Girard shrugged, propping his head on his fists. He knew how to be diplomatic with sources of information, especially shady ones. Perhaps not Soon's strong suite, but his.

He pushed thoughts of Soon out of his head quickly.

"Alright. I won't say it." He folded his arms on the table. "I just want to know about it."

"Hold it, you need to answer a couple questions first."

He nodded, staying as passive as possible. "What do you want to know?"

"I want to know why you're interested. I want to know how you found Douglas's number or our address."

"Fair enough." The sharp paranoia in the girl's eyes put him on edge, and being on edge made it difficult to stay so agreeable. He had dealt with paranoid types before—hell, he could be considered one of them—but there was just something disturbingly rough about the woman's look. Like she was ready to whip out a bat and club him to death if he poked one toe out of line. He couldn't be sure about how powerful she was, so it was best to avoid confrontations. "A friend of mine went in there a while ago. I plan on bringing him out by any means necessary, since some people aren't willing to try to help at all."

He couldn't stop a touch of resentment from reaching his tone at the last few words.

"And you've had a bit of a violent streak since you left that place, I heard. When you make a reputation, news travels fast. I dug around for names of people who were involved, one happened to be your boyfriend, and I got your name and address from that."

Her nose wrinkled, those dark eyes flickering with disgust. "Douglas is _not_ my boyfriend."

He couldn't stop a skeptical look. "You live together."

"He's, like, three times my age! Ugh, we just share an apartment. Not like we share a room or something."

For a moment, he saw a flicker of the woman she used to be, normal. Of course, the flicker was gone fast.

"Now can I ask my questions?"

She frowned, rubbing her temples, thoroughly back in 'shell-shocked paranoid woman' mode. "Listen, I want nothing more to do with _anything_ those crazy people do. I just came to say that, whoever you plan on saving, give it up."

"That's something I can't do." Girard furrowed his brow, trying to keep the woman from seeing how eager he was. "What crazy people?"

"There's a cult that runs the place. I don't know a lot about it and I don't want to." She made a motion to stand up, but Girard beat her, standing and spreading out his arms so she was trapped in the booth.

"The only thing you need to do is answer a few questions and you'd save a life."

"More like damn one." She stood and shoved him to get through.

_Flames climbed the walls, licking the books lining the shelves before swallowing them whole. The heat made her bare skin blister and her eyes water, but the glowing rune on the floor kept her stuck on her back, her limbs splayed until she resembled a star. The candles were so close to her that they were possibly burning her more than the house fire._

_A leathery hand clutched her calf, and she gasped, her back arching in pain as her leg began to burn. Another hand grabbed her opposite thigh, spreading the agony, and pulled itself up out of the abyss until its body was dragging against hers, scalding her blackening skin, and she came face to face with an angel._

They jerked away from each other, Cheryl pressing her back against the wall and holding her hands, looking at the pale skin as though shocked it hadn't been burnt.

Girard fought a wave of dizziness, planting a hand on the table to keep himself propped up. It felt like his flesh had been roasted, but there was nothing on him to mark it.

"They've actually found another girl."

Girard looked up, struggling to keep his eyes open. He felt ready to pass out right then and there. "What?"

"And you know her. They're going to try to birth… whatever it is." Cheryl stood up straight again, which was a little embarrassing seeing as he, an epic-level illusionist, was still reeling so hard he couldn't even think straight. "Alright. Alright. I'll help."

Girard rubbed his head, trying to sort through his jumbled sensations so he could respond properly. An ice bath sounded really good right then.

"Excuse me?"

He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again, looking up at the woman. "You will?"

"I'm the only one who can at this point." Cheryl glanced around the diner, noticing that some people were beginning to stare, and she sat back in the booth, gesturing for Girard to do the same.

Girard blinked the spots out of his vision, looking across the room, and gave a roguish smile, as though this were normal, and sat across from her. After a moment, the diners went back to their everyday business.

"Who is she?"

Cheryl's voice was now a low hiss, those tired eyes sharpening. Well, at least he had her attention.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just trying to save my friend. He's a guy, by the way."

"No, you know her, even if you don't think so." Cheryl blew on her hand, trying to relieve the pain from her phantom burn. "She probably has lots of nightmares? Mysterious past?"

The image of slate gray eyes flashed in his mind.

"…What do you mean, 'they found a new girl'?"

"Do you know her or _not?_"

He frowned but tried to keep any other sign of his thoughts from registering on his face. "I might."

Cheryl nodded, her eyes narrowing, and she leaned back. "If you let me see her, then I'll help you with finding your friend."

A tiny part of him, a part he had silenced the night he had started invading her dreams, tried to speak out. He crushed it fast.

"Are you going to hurt her?"

Cheryl tilted her head, propping it up on her fist. "I'd say no, but you can't really trust my answer either way, can you?"

He leaned back, frowning. No, he couldn't.

Girard made his decision quickly, refusing to listen to that little voice in the back of his head.

"Fine."

He pulled a napkin from the dispenser against the wall, taking out a pen from his pocket and writing down the series of numbers he had memorized a couple weeks after he and Soon had washed up in this world. "Call me."

Cheryl reached forward, balling up the napkin in one hand and shoving it in a pocket, and stood up. "Thanks for lunch. I'll be in touch."

Girard's eyes followed her as she left and he made a quick signal to the waitress for the check. Luckily, while foreign in so many ways, this world was a lot like his own: humans behaved the same way.

He closed his eyes, working through the dark magic burning his flesh from the inside. It was festering, getting deeper and deeper into him until it was at his heart, tearing away at the secrets and lies he kept and told, burning it all to the ground.

The check came. He paid in cash. With any luck, his conspicuous lack of a credit card wasn't _that_ unusual here.

He stood up from the table and walked out the door, ignoring the stares as he went.

When he came outside, a ringing noise came from his pocket.

Girard jumped a little in surprise, but took out the ringing plastic regardless. It had taken a bit, but he had worked out how to use this world's method of communication. He missed using magic, though. That was a lot less expensive.

"Hello?"

Static rumbled uncomfortably against his ear, and once again, he cursed this world's lack of magic. "Hello, Mr. …er, Draketooth?"

He arched an eyebrow, looking up at the sky, so much like the one back home. "Who is this?"

"This is the Teasdale School."

Girard frowned.

"There has been an incident with Tai Kim. We need someone to pick him up."

Girard rolled his eyes to the sky, glaring, as if the unseen gods of this world would roll over and take these obstacles out of his way. "Why are you calling _me?_ I'm not his father."

"This number is the only number we have besides the house phone, and no one picked up there."

Of course. Soon hadn't gotten one of these things.

Girard stifled a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. "What'd he do?"

"He got into a fight. Please come pick up your son."

"He's not my… oh, never mind." He let his hand drop. "Fine. I'll come and pick him up."

* * *

"Young, stay close to me."

Her lower lip was wobbling. Papa's hand ran through her hair, but the tremble there gave away his fear.

"Are Mommy and Tai okay?"

"Your mommy is a very brave, strong woman. You know that. They'll be fine." He looked down at her, managing a smile, and tapped her nose affectionately. "We need to do this alone, okay?"

"Why?"

"Because you're my little girl."

She frowned in confusion, but at this point, she was used to the cryptic answers her parents gave when she asked after their murmured conversations in the dark recesses of their home.

Papa looked around at the docks, ears twitching nervously, and nudged her towards the building. "Get inside before anymore monsters come out."

Young scampered forward, looking up at the door, the words 'Silent Hill Historical Society' painted on the glass.

"Hurry."

She pushed the door open, kicking up a thick cloud of dust and scurrying in. Her Papa was close behind her, closing the entrance quickly to the eerily cheerful sound of rusted bells ringing.

The dust settled.

For a moment, there was true silence.

"Why didn't you and Mommy want me and Tai to come here before?"

The countertop next to the door had a little bell on top, and she was briefly tempted to ring it, though experience taught her to never make unnecessary noise. Various pictures hung on the walls, a few photographs of smiling tourists as they boarded a cruise that would never come back to land, a man tending to his sick wife moments before smothering her with a pillow, a woman cradling her son as she plotted to kill him, a boy and his brother on a boat right before the elder accidentally pushed the other over the edge, two blond children playing on the street as the shadow of their murderer began to loom above them…

"You remember how your Mommy and I told you both that this town is a powerful place?"

She nodded. Their home was alive, her Mommy had said. It was a place to be feared and respected. If she conducted herself how she had to, then she would survive.

"Everything that has power has weak points and strong points. The weak points here are our home, the Baldwin House, and the shopping mall, the motel, and the observation deck. Not necessarily safe, but a lot safer than anywhere else. This place has a lot more strong points than weak points." Papa gestured at the ground, gripping the child's shoulder as he led her through the front room. "The Historical Society is one of the strong ones."

The next room made her head hurt. It was dilapidated and the wood was water damaged, but above one of the four doors leading out of the room, there was a giant painted circle with one inner circle, and inside the inner circle, there were three other circles, and runes covered most of the blank spaces. Water dripped down from the ceiling, moss beginning to grow on the walls, but it felt like the rune was trying to wriggle off the wall to eat her alive. It felt like it was burning her…

"Sweetie, don't look at it closely."

Her papa's hand slid over her eyes, breaking whatever connection she had with the circles.

"It's a bad sign, especially for little girls."

His hand still between her and the circles, he led her through another door.

Green fingers fell away from her eyes. "I need you to tell me what you see, Sweetheart. Be as honest as you can be."

Young nodded, looking around the surprisingly undamaged room. Four pictures on the walls, one for each. One was of a giant man with a triangular helmet with a blood-spattered apron sewn of human flesh, a giant knife twice her size dragging along on the dirt, dozens of broken bodies lying behind him, their legs splayed. Under the painting, the words _The Punisher_ were emblazoned. The second was of another giant man, but only half his face and his shoulder were obscured by metal plating while the other half was featureless save for a hole where his ear should have been, and a giant meat cleaver lay in his hand, a blood-spattered butcher's apron covering his body, brutalized murder victims strewn in the background. Under his picture was written _The Executioner_.

The third was of the biggest monster of them all, with such a heavy black hood on his head that she wasn't even sure she would find a human face under it. His right arm was morphed into a freakishly long, thick blade, spattered with brown and red stains but sharp as the day it was made. His only clothing was a apron at his hip, stitched together white, black, and green skins, and all exposed flesh—back, shoulders, chest, arms—rippled with muscles just under the surface, streaked with sweat and sticky with blood that wasn't his. The navy blue ribbon tied around his bicep made Young's head hurt a little, like she should know something but couldn't think of it. He stood on top of a gallows with obscured men, women, and children of indeterminate race or species hanging from the nooses, and on the ground, fields and fields of massacred people, both innocent and guilty, richly deserving and not, lay in heaps. Underneath, the title _The Crusader_ lay.

The fourth picture was of a woman, black hair covering her face, tied to a stake as she was burnt by angry villagers all around her. _Flame Purifies All._

She opened her mouth to speak, then pain burst behind her right eye.

The room felt hot. Water started dripping from the ceiling, but it only took her a moment to realize that water wasn't thick and red.

The liquid formed droopy, scrawly letters, spelling out so many names that the print was no bigger than the width of her pinky finger and yet the walls were still covered. Angela Orosco. Cybil Bennett. Amy Baldwin. Joseph Bartlett. Theodore Fitch. Mary Shepherd-Sunderland. There wasn't any rhyme or reason to the order of the names—not alphabetical, and definitely not chronological—but she wasn't concerned by that.

"Young!"

She collapsed to the ground, holding her head and groaning. "Papa… it hurts so much…!"

He knelt by her, wrapping his arms around her tiny body, and rocked her back and forth, doing his best to conceal his trembles. He was muttering in Goblin, a language he only used when he was really scared, but the words were basic enough for her to understand.

"_No… please no, not her, anything but that…_"

Only just noticing his murmurs, he bit his tongue, running a hand through her hair. It felt like she was seeing double, or else she was seeing what he saw as well as what she did. Like some kind of phantom under the names, she had the vaguest sense of the words 'Do you think they'll ever be yours?' written.

"Sweetheart, you know that I'd never do anything to hurt you, right?"

She rested her head against his chest, listening to his heart beating wildly, and struggled against the fog in her mind. "Yes, Papa."

"So then if I hurt you, you know that it's for your own good?"

She nodded, running her eyes along the names despite herself. Harry Mason. Claudia Wolf. Walter Sullivan. Michael Kaufmann. Lisa Garland.

"I'm going to do something to you, Young. It's going to hurt, but after I'm done, a lot of the pain will go away. Then your mommy will finish it for me and it'll be gone, like nothing happened, and you'll be safer. Do you understand?"

She looked up blearily, frowning in confusion and struggling past the growing migraine. "Why me, Papa?"

"You're a very special girl, Sweetie. Some people want to use it to their advantage." He kissed her head, the pain receding where his lips touched. "Girls in particular are very important to these people, so Tai's not in danger, but he's also special in his own way. Your mommy and I are only making sure you're as safe as possible."

He sat on the ground, picking her up and nestling her in his lap. "Are you ready?"

She nodded, getting comfortable against him.

He took a deep breath, resting her head against his shoulder, and drove a claw into her forehead.


	2. Chapter 2

"Excuse me?"

A man, cheek smeared with oil, looked up from cleaning his truck's engine. His eyes narrowed warily, but there wasn't a paranoid suspicion in his eyes, as one would expect. It was only the healthy amount of wariness that one would expect from a man approached alone in a truck stop.

"Yeah? Who're you?"

He straightened up, wiping his oily palms on his jeans, and took a step back to stay a comfortable distance away.

"My name is Soon Kim."

Soon tried to keep his stance as nonthreatening as possible, but he didn't deny being a little on guard himself. He'd learned early on that this was not a safe investigation to take part in, and in all honesty, the weapons he knew to be available in this world put him on edge.

The man scratched his straggly brown beard, dark eyes fixed on Soon's gray. "Hm. Travis."

He seemed to be somewhat satisfied that Soon wasn't about to attack, so he turned back to the engine, keeping an eye on the paladin while he started cleaning again. "Do you want directions or something? This is a pretty out of way place."

"No, I know where I am. I was actually hoping to speak with you. I understand you're Mr. Grady?"

The man's hands froze on the engine.

"…What do you want?"

"Only information." Soon tried to keep his defensive tensing to a minimum. "Have you been to a place called Silent Hill?"

The trucker looked up with wild eyes, and Soon only had time to back up and put his hand to the knife hidden in his jacket before the man whipped out a pistol from his vest and pointed it right at the paladin's face. "You have five seconds to run."

He stayed calm, his (ebbing) inability to feel fear taking the edge off the adrenaline rush, and stared coolly at the man behind the gun.

"I don't want to hurt anyone. I just want to help a little girl."

The trucker's body straightened out as though he were a puppet.

"You did the same, didn't you? Forty-three years ago now, I think. I heard you saved a girl from a house fire."

A bead of sweat ran down the man's face.

Soon held out his hands peaceably, cocking his head. "I only need to know what I am dealing with. Just answer some questions and I'll be on my way. That will be the end of it."

There was a long pause.

"It won't be the end. It never ends."

Soon hadn't seen a man look so tired in my years. Travis withdrew his weapon, sliding it in his vest again, taking his cap off to run a hand through his hair. "Never."

The paladin stifled a sigh of relief. He didn't like these guns. With just a spasm of the trucker's hand, he would have been dead. Young and Tai would be left alone again.

Travis closed the hood of his truck, breaking into Soon's thoughts, leaning against the grill before putting his cap back on. "Is Alessa back, then?"

"Alessa?" Soon frowned, crossing his arms, replaying the only conversation he had had with Young about this. "That is the second time I've heard that name."

"I thought you said you were protecting a little girl." He didn't look surprised, though. He just gave Soon a tired glance, pushing off from the grill and trotting to the cab of his truck. "Alessa's the only little girl who comes to mind. Unless you count the ghost kids, I guess."

"Ghost kids?"

"They said they were from Shepherd's Glen. I didn't dig any further than that." He opened the cab door and pulled out a bottle of whiskey, putting it on the hood of the truck. "I guess I'm not going to drive today, and I'm not about to have this conversation sober."

Soon was tempted to join in, but he refrained. He had to keep his wits about him.

"Who is Alessa?"

"You know, after everything, even I'm not sure." Travis uncapped one of the bottles and took a swig directly from it. "A little girl. One powerful little girl."

Soon raised an eyebrow, leaning against the grill, his breath coming out in plumes of vapor.

"Get in the cab. We'll chat inside."

The man took another swig, then swung into the driver's seat. Soon had a much more dignified ascent to the passenger's seat before closing the door behind him.

"I take it she's not ordinary?"

"Anything but." Travis rested his bottle in his lap, watching the frost on the windshield gather. "Who are you trying to save? If it's not Alessa, then I don't know what to tell you."

"She's…" Soon had a moment of uncharacteristic indecision. "My daughter."

Travis stared at his bottle for a while.

"Then keep her close. That place eats children alive." He took a swig, closing his eyes and leaning back in his seat. "Alessa… I'm vague on the details, but her mother was part of some cult. The Order. The Order wanted to have their god reborn so she could usher in paradise or some crap like that, but they needed a little girl on Earth to give birth, and they chose Alessa."

"Give birth to God?" Soon frowned in confusion, crossing his arms and arching an eyebrow.

"Yeah. Apparently, they're not just crazy. She was pregnant with _something_, and it definitely wasn't a baby." He rubbed his face, groaning softly. "Listen, that's all I really know, okay? Alessa's always the center of it." He paused, his eyes narrowing. "And avoid mirrors."

"Mirrors?"

"Yeah."

Travis took another long drink, breathing out a cloud of vapor. "My advice? Grab your daughter and take her as far away as you can. It'll never stop haunting you both, but haunting is worth never going to that place."

"Not in this case." Soon closed his eyes briefly, wariness overtaking him for a moment. "What happened to Alessa?"

"I don't know." Travis leaned on his steering wheel, sighing softly. "But wherever she is now, she's not done with me. I know that much."

"How?"

He looked over at Soon, a sardonic smile on his face.

"Forty-three years. I'm seventy-six. I haven't aged a day." He looked back at the windshield, taking a long drink. "It won't be over until she wants it to be over. I hope you know what you're in for, because it never stops following you."

Soon didn't say anything.

Travis rested his arms on the steering wheel, watching the parking lot as though he expected something to come out of the mist. "Go home. Give your kid a hug. Learn how to use a gun. Try to hold onto why you're doing it, because if you let yourself get distracted by the horrible things the town throws at you, that girl's going to lose her father." He shook his head, capping his bottle. "That's all the advice I can give."

Sensing that he was dismissed, Soon opened the door. "It's more than you know. Thank you."

The trucker didn't look at him. He was lost in thought.

Soon closed the door behind him and walked away.

* * *

"You asked for it, Tai."

Tai scowled, sucking a little harder on the ice in his mouth as Young dabbed his lip with a bloodied handkerchief. Girard stifled a laugh, smirking from his place leaning against the wall.

"Kid, I'll give you a tip: when your own twin is scolding you, you fucked up."

Tai turned a searing glare to Girard, opening his mouth to retort.

"Say a word and I'll stuff your mouth with a towel."

He shut up with that one terse statement from his sister, but his frown didn't disappear. Had it been anyone else, he would have socked them for bossing him around like that, but it was his twin. She got a free pass on everything, and boy did she know it.

Apparently sensing his wretched mood, Young softened, mollifying him with a little kiss on his head.

Tai felt most of the anger drain away. It didn't even occur to him to be embarrassed that she did it in front of that smirking redhead pervert—he and his sister had always been physically affectionate in the orphanage, and no one had made a big deal about it.

"I only did it for you, Young."

She arched an eyebrow, the tired lines in her face fading in the fluorescent light. If nothing else, Tai comforted himself in the fact that all the excitement seemed to have distracted his sister from her nightmares.

"If defending my honor involves jumping three seniors, then let the honor lie."

Girard's eyebrows jumped up and he straightened. "Wait, what's that?"

Tai sent another glare towards the redhead, resting his hand on Young's knee protectively. "None of your business."

Girard rolled his eyes, that weird facial tattoo elongating with his scowl. "Why the hell did I agree to this, again?"

"Hey, you're the one who can move away. Not us," Tai snapped.

"You're making your mouth bleed more, idiot." Young gently cuffed his ear, just the same way he did to her when she did something stupid, and pressed the handkerchief hard on his mouth. "Shut up."

Girard smirked, letting out a bark-like laugh. "Yeah, listen to your sister, kid."

Tai tightened his grip on Young's knee, glare only intensifying. He didn't like the redhead or that old man anywhere near him or his sister. He was already regretting signing the damn adoption papers—his sister's nightmares were better than being in a house with anyone who would adopt a teenage boy and girl.

"Glare all you want. You're ass is fried once your father finds out about your fight."

Something snapped.

He yanked his sisters hand from his face, teeth clenching. "He is _NOT_ my father!"

Girard's eyebrows shot up.

"…"

He covered his mouth, maybe to hide a frown.

"Alright, I get it. No need to be testy."

Tai growled softly before Young cuffed his ear, this time not even trying to be gentle. "Tai! He welcomed us into his home—be polite for once in your life!"

Suddenly, the front door to the kitchen opened.

Everyone looked up when Soon Kim came in. He paused in the doorway, looking at the teenage girl perched on top of the kitchen table surrounded by bloodied handkerchiefs, then at the tense boy sitting on a chair in front of her, red splashed across his shirt and smeared on his face among other discolorations, and finally at Girard, who was a few feet away from the children and sported no signs of having caused the boy's wounds.

He took off his jacket and put it on the back of a chair. "What happened?"

"The kid thought it'd be a good idea to pick a fight with jocks three times his size. I had to go pick them up. You owe me. Now it's your problem."

With that curt response, Girard brushed past the older man and was gone.

Soon only arched an eyebrow, tapping his finger on the back of the chair. "…Is there something you want to add to that thorough answer?"

Young stifled a laugh, covering her mouth, then looked back at Tai, reading his face with those familiar gray eyes. Tai looked up at her, still scowling, and made circles on her knee with his thumb. His expression brooked no room for humor.

Her smile faded, and a small part of him regretted being so moody. His sister didn't smile much anymore, and he'd just wiped away one of the few she had.

"Please don't be hard on him. He was only—"

"Young, it's fine. I can handle it myself." Tai looked away, patting his sister's knee. "Go take a look at one of the books you got from the library."

She paused, smile gone completely, and Soon frowned.

"…Alright."

The ice he had been sucking had melted. Young hopped off the table, walking down the hall and disappearing.

Tai pressed the handkerchief to his mouth, trying to ignore the throbbing pain covering his body, somehow more prominent now that his sister was gone. One eye swollen to a squint, a split lip, a bloody nose (that had since stopped bleeding), God-knew how many cuts and bruises… He found himself wishing that Young was around to distract him again.

"You shouldn't dismiss your sister like that."

Soon's tone sounded disapproving, maybe even disappointed, and he went to the freezer, opening it up. "And napkins only do so much. Put some ice on your lip and eye."

Two wraps of ice in towels were put before him before Soon sat across the table. Tai glared warily, then dropped the bloodied handkerchief in his lap, picking up the ice and pressing it to his wounds.

"I'd like to know what happened. Here's your chance to give me your side of the story before the school does."

"None of your business." He had to angle the ice so that it didn't muffle his speech, but it was worth it.

Soon arched an eyebrow, leaning forward and propping elbows on the table. "Tai, do you understand the implications of your adoption?"

He tensed up, color draining from his face.

"I'm your legal guardian. If someone or something is threatening you or your sister, I need to know. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Yeah right."

Tai glared at him guardedly, but color returned to his complexion. He had expected some kind of admission to what was going to happen to them, but he guessed that that wasn't coming yet.

The old man didn't make any indication of his intentions, though, and only sighed softly. "I don't blame you for not trusting me, but the fact remains if you don't explain why you had the fight, I'll need to find out from your sister and you'll only make your punishment more severe."

Tai continued to glare.

"Very well. I'll ask your sister."

The old man stood up from the table. Tai tensed up again, clenching his fist on the ice. Not Young. He didn't want Young being pried into by the creep.

"They were saying stuff about her."

The man paused, then sat back down, frowning. "What kind?"

"You know. They were seniors, and she's a pretty freshman. They were talking about all the nasty stuff they wanted to do." He wrinkled his nose, the gesture making pain pinprick his face. "I lost it."

"…" Soon crossed his arms. "You need to learn to control your temper. No matter how righteous your anger, it'll only endanger you and those you care about."

Tai sneered. "Have you ever had guys talk like that about your sister?"

"No. It was about my wife."

Tai stopped, eyebrows going up. "Wait, really?"

"Yes. Two men I worked with. My wife and I come from a culture where class means a great deal, and she was from a higher class than me. Since we married regardless of that, many people thought that she must have been of a woman of loose morals." His eyes sharpened slightly. "They considered that justification for saying some… inappropriate things while I was around. I challenged them to a duel. Afterwards, no one said anything like that again."

Tai blinked in confusion, putting the ice against his lip down and scratching his head. "Um, weren't you telling me that I wasn't supposed to do that?"

"Yes. That duel almost ended with those men's deaths. I was very angry, and if I had continued after a bystander told me to stop, I would have innocent blood on my hands." He held out his palms, which only reflected the light a little with cleanliness. "It doesn't wash away."

Tai blinked again, trying to sort through what he thought of this story. Maybe he was a little sheltered from the orphanage, but hadn't the days of duels to the death been over for the past century? "…How old were you?"

"Twenty-six. Young and arrogant enough to lose sight of when I had gone too far."

He took a moment, then stood up. "Come with me."

Tai frowned warily, but he followed the man down the hall, keeping ice against his eye. They went to the end of the hall to a white door that the teen hadn't seen the other side of. Without hesitation, the man opened it up and ushered the kid inside.

There was a mat on the ground, with various large things that Tai had never seen before—they looked like training equipment—tucked to the side. There was also what must have been a decorative or antique sword sheathed and hung carefully on the wall (in Tai's unprofessional opinion, it looked… Japanese? Maybe a katana? Hell, he'd never seen one outside of kid books about samurai and ninja turtles anyway). The older man took his shoes off, stepping onto the mat with only socks on, and Tai habitually did the same.

"What's this?"

"Training room." Soon turned around, crossing his arms over his chest, arching an eyebrow. "Try to hit me."

"Wait, what?"

The man held out his arms, leaving his torso unprotected. "Try to hit me."

Tai frowned in confusion, then put the ice bundle on the ground. "You know I'm probably a third of your age, right?"

That provoked a slightly amused smile. "I've done this before."

"Alright." Tai wasn't about to pass up the chance.

He swung his fist at the man's throat, but at the last moment, Soon ducked away, making Tai get caught off balance as his weight was thrown forward to punch air.

Soon, now behind him, caught him by his arm before he fell over. For a moment, Tai hung there, staring at the spot where the man had been a second before, then squirmed from Soon's grip, scowling.

"Alright, you proved that you're better than I am. Happy?"

Soon arched an eyebrow, kneeling down and picking up the ice, holding out to the boy. After a moment's hesitation, Tai took it.

"The point of that was making you recognize that brute force isn't everything. If that had been a serious fight, you could have easily been killed without me having to throw a punch."

"Huh?" Tai frowned as the man stood up, holding the ice to his eye. "I'm not _that_ bad."

"No, but you would have fallen on your stomach. In that position, someone can stomp on your neck and that's the end of it."

Tai's eyebrows shot up. "Um… you put too much thought into that."

"I'm in a dangerous line of work. It's instinctive." Soon crossed his arms, those weirdly Young-like gray eyes drilling a hole through the boy. "Regardless, you got into an avoidable fight. As your guardian, I can't allow that to slide. You have to learn discipline."

Tai scowled, instinctively drawing away and trying to keep from shrinking. Anytime one of the sisters said something like that, he found himself faced with a paddle. He _hoped_ it was just a paddle this time.

"You'll start waking up at six and working with me in here twice a day."

His eyebrows shot up again and he uncurled from his standing protective ball. "What?"

"It teaches discipline. I was planning on teaching your sister, too, but she needs to take something different from it than you do, so I think I should instruct you both separately."

Tai opened his mouth, screwing his face up, trying to process it. "…" He shook his head. "Whoa, no. I don't want you in a room alone with my sister."

His eyes were so sharp and gray. It felt like he was actually looking at the blade of a sword by making any eye-contact. They were the same color as his sister's, but different in a thousand ways. Young's eyes always looked tired and distant, but Soon's were cutting.

Tai resisted the urge to shudder.

The man let out a soft sigh, those eyes keeping Tai's gaze captured. "I understand your concerns, and I admire how much you want to protect your sister, but I assure you that my reasons for adopting both of you are pure."

Tai scowled.

"I swear by my honor. You and your sister are safe, and I will make sure it _stays_ that way."

His tone was weirdly emphatic and sharp on the last phrase, but that didn't alleviate Tai's glower.

"I will keep the door unlocked when she and I are in here. Would that make you more comfortable?"

Tai rolled his shoulders, still frowning. "I don't have much of a choice."

Soon looked at him long and hard. "I don't want to be your enemy, Tai."

The boy shrugged and walked past the older man, leaving the room.

* * *

"Shhh… Sweetie, it's okay, I'm done…"

Young trembled and sobbed softly in pain, her forehead throbbing and blood dripping in her eyes. Papa rubbed the blood away from her brow with the heel of his hand, putting pressure on the symbol he had carved in her flesh, the cuts burning hard against the both of them.

"Papa, it hurts…"

"I know, darling." He moved his hand, pressing his lips against the sign, and relief from the burning throbs rippled out from it.

She relaxed against him and he drew away, wiping her blood from his mouth. "Are you feeling okay?"

Young wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in his dirty shirt. "Is it done? Do I have to do that again?"

He kissed her head again, stroking her back soothingly. "I'm sorry, Young. Your mother has to complete it."

"Why?" She whimpered softly, even though she knew her mommy would spank her if she found out Young was being so sniffly because of the pain. Her mommy wanted Young and Tai to be tough to survive if she or Papa died, so she punished them when they did things that would get them hurt if they were alone.

"Because we love you. I did the foundation, and it's up to her to put in the details."

"What does love have to do with it, Papa? Don't all parents love their children?"

Papa let out a soft sigh, placing his feet on the ground so she was cradled between his knees and his chest, surrounded by his arms in a cocoon of protection. "…Not all of them. Some of them do bad things to their children. That's why me and your mommy are doing this for you; we love you and that's been enough to keep you safe for now, but there's going to be a time where we aren't going to be around."

Young's lower lip trembled. She tried to hide it, but her papa could tell just by the slight tremble to her shoulders.

"But we're not at that point yet." He kissed her head again, glancing around the room nervously. "Just… always remember that we love you, okay? No matter what, you and your brother will always be my children. Always."

She frowned in confusion, looking up. "Of course. Why would I forget any of that?"

"No reason. No good reason, at least."

He gently pushed her off his lap, standing up and brushing himself off, frowning a little. "You stopped bleeding. Are you feeling alright?"

She resisted the urge to touch her cuts with her filthy hands. Her papa got angry when she touched her cuts—he said they could get infected. "Yes, Papa."

"Alright. We'll need to clean it up back home, okay? We can't stay here any longer."

Young didn't bother asking about getting cleaned up in the lake just outside the Historical Society. Even Papa had spanked her and Tai red for going near that place, and he almost never laid a finger on either of them. It was on her 'never go to' list.

She nodded, taking one glance at the walls. The names and words were all gone. There were only the pictures.

For some reason, the picture of the Crusader held her attention the most.

"Come on, Sweetie."

He took her hand and led her out.

* * *

A/N: I didn't take much time to edit this because it took so long to revamp and redo it a couple dozen times. Blerg. I put too much effort into fanfiction. x.x


	3. Chapter 3

"Mr. Draketooth?"

Girard looked up from his quiet examinations of a small white flower, frowning warily when he saw Soon's daughter standing there, looking all innocent with a white shirt with a pink butterfly on and a powder blue skirt. She looked like she had walked off the pages of a storybook.

Except for, you know, those awfully deep lines in her face and the dark circles under her eyes.

He looked away. He couldn't stand looking at her eyes.

"Hey, kid. Did he tear your brother a new one?"

"I don't know. Tai told me to leave."

She walked up to him, looking down at the flower in his hands. "It's a pretty flower. Is it meant for someone?"

"Hm? No, no, I just haven't seen it before."

Girard shied away from her, frowning, and put the flower down, the bell-like blossom wilting. He didn't want to be alone with this kid. He didn't want to see the lines in her face or hear that depressing world-weary tiredness in her voice or look at those godforsaken eyes. He just wanted her to leave. "Why'd you come out here? Do you want homework help or something? I'm telling you now, I'm a bad person to talk to about stuff like that."

"No, I just wanted to thank you for taking us home."

He tensed up a little, but he forced himself to stay sitting, keeping his eyes fixed on the blades of grass. She sat beside him, resting her hands on her knees. He could feel heat radiating off her, but even more prominently, he could feel the heavy oppressive magic that followed her and her brother around, choking him like smog.

"What else was I supposed to do?"

"You could have waited for Mr. Kim to take us." She hugged her knees to her chest. He could feel those damn gray eyes resting on him, just as manipulative as the man they came from. Just as impossible to lie to. Just as good at pulling his emotions like he was some _puppet_… "Why do you live with Mr. Kim? I've never seen either of you talk to each other. You act like you hate him, but I don't think you do."

His muscles tightened up like twine, making his jaw set. "I worked with him. We're working together again."

"You can work together without living in the same home."

"It's cheaper this way." His blood was heating up. Magic stirred impatiently, but he quickly squashed it. "Go inside and do some homework or something."

It came out sharper than he meant it, provoking a shift in his head. He shouldn't be so angry.

"I'm sorry." He didn't look up to see her expression, but he noticed how she tightened her hug on her knees. "I shouldn't have asked." Her hand went up, twirling a long strand of midnight black hair around her finger. "I just… wanted to talk."

"Why?" He felt like a caged animal, just sitting there. The darkness was making things happen in his head—it was awful enough to try to sleep with it just a few rooms away, he couldn't stand being so close to it, to her… when her eyes were open.

"Well, we live together, don't we? And I haven't really known anyone besides the other orphans and the nuns. It's nice to meet someone new…"

Those eyes were tearing at him. He didn't even need to look to know. They were taking him apart, reading him like he was nothing more than a textbook, snipping him up like a frog in a biology class…

"…If you don't want to talk, I can go."

She was good at hiding her feelings, but years of trying to learn how to read Soon automatically allowed him to hear the small undercurrent of hurt in her voice.

He stifled a flinch, a pang of conscience finally making it to the surface.

"No, it's okay. I just… don't know how to deal with kids." He forced himself to look at her face, focusing on her forehead. "I never had any of my own."

She perked noticeably, alleviating his conscience a little while at the same time giving him another pang, and she released her knees from her hug. "It's okay. You can pretend I'm an adult, if you like."

That provoked a low chuckle. "Your voice is an octave or two too high, kid."

"It'll get lower eventually. It's already been changing a little." She didn't seem deterred at all, instead crossing her legs, the ghost of a smile beginning to tweak her lips. The smog was still there, but it felt lighter somehow. Only a shade lighter, but lighter. "The sisters told me I'm a late bloomer because I was really malnourished early on and I don't eat much."

"Then eat more." Girard glanced at her waist, agreeing in his head. She really was a little too thin for comfort. "Puberty is hell. You want to get it over with as soon as possible."

"Oh, I know. I've seen what happened to the older kids when it was their turn. It didn't look fun."

Girard nodded, resting his arm on his knee. He kept trying to shove her eyes away in his mind. Just concentrate on the neck, or the jaw, or her shoulders or the way her hair was tucked behind her ear. All of those things… she looked so much like her father, so he tried to pull out the things that (he presumed) came from her mother. "Why did you really come out here, kid? Soon's a much more pleasant guy for you to talk to, and I don't think being deprived of his company for a half-hour would really make you lonely enough to seek out the resident misanthrope."

She chuckled, but there was a small note of nervousness there.

"…I'm tired. I didn't want to fall asleep."

He bit the inside of his cheek.

"But I don't really want to talk about that. What about you? Where do you come from? Why did you get that dragon tattoo?"

He was lost in thought, but he forced himself to respond, subconsciously touching the dragon crawling up his face. "It was appropriate. 'Draketooth.' It's pretty common to get tattoos where I'm from, but I guess not so much here. As for where that is… well, it's a small village in the desert. You wouldn't know it."

"The desert?" She leaned forward in interest. "Then why are you so pale, if you don't mind my asking?"

"My family didn't originate there, but someone along the line moved because it was a huge merchant town and they were merchants. I just use a lot of…" he searched for the word, knowing that there was an equivalent of 'protect from elements' here… "sunscreen."

"Since you were a kid?"

"Let's just say that my hair wasn't the only thing that was red when I was growing up."

She laughed, something really charming to the sound.

"To tell the truth, the desert sounds nice right about now. It's getting cold."

"Yeah, I've never gotten used to the cold." He smiled, looking up at the sky. The darkness was a little easier to ignore. "One time, I was traveling with a few people along some of the highest mountain tops. It was cold enough to snow year-round there, and yet I _still_ managed to get a nasty sunburn. Curse of pale skin, huh?"

She laughed again, running her hand through the frosted grass. "Do you miss it? Home?"

"Only when it gets really cold, like right now."

Dark clouds were rolling above them, threatening either snow or rain.

"What was it like?"

Girard absently played with his ponytail, thinking back to the hot desert sand and the mirages that had wobbled in and out of being just outside Sandsedge. Those had been his inspiration for becoming an illusionist.

"Rough, but not too much. There were a lot of thieves and pickpockets, since little merchant towns like that attract a lot of street rats, but a lot of us had our fun by beating them at their own game. I can tell you, nothing is quite like the expression a pickpocket makes when they realize they've been pickpocketed."

Another laugh. It made him smile.

"A girl in my orphanage once tried to pickpocket money at school. The sisters rapped her really hard when she was found out."

"Well, if you get caught, you're probably not cut out for the job." He looked back at her, focusing on her forehead again. "Seriously, we should go inside. It's freezing out here and your fingers are turning blue."

Her eyebrows went up and she looked down at her hands, noticing that he was right. "Okay. I should probably put on a sweater anyway."

She pushed herself up, brushing the frost off her dampened skirt, but Girard paused, frowning.

"You don't feel cold? Why didn't you put one on in the first place?"

"Oh, I don't get cold. I once lay down in a snow bank for a hour in a T-shirt on a dare, and I felt warm as could be the whole time. But I nearly got frostbite and the doctor said I was hypothermic, so I try to keep my temperature up anyway."

He arched an eyebrow, frown deepening.

"Go get a sweater on. And drink something hot. Soon'll skewer me if you end up sick on my watch."

She nodded, smiling with a little more cheerfulness than she had been displaying for the past few days. After a moment, he realized she expected him to come with her.

He hesitated, the blackness around the girl rippling, thick enough to make his eyes water.

Girard stood up. "Well go on then. I'm right behind you."

Her smile, weighed by exhaustion, got a fraction bigger and she spun on her heels, trotting inside.

He closed his eyes, wiping the image of that face from his mind. Wiping away the smile, the laugh, and the charm. She'd eventually fall asleep, whether she wanted to or not. It was best if he was close by when that happened.

Girard shoved his hands in his pockets and walked inside.

* * *

"Son of a bitch."

He was lucky there was a stash of shirts at the bowling alley. Otherwise, he wouldn't have had anything to use as a wrap. As it stood, a couple shirts were all the support his bad knee had, but screw it, that was the best there was.

Kraagor hooked his hastily cleaned ax on his back, limping through the back alleys of the abandoned town. His breastplate had acid burns on it from that _thing_ in the bowling lane, and he doubted it could live through much more of a beating before he had to discard it. With any luck, that happened after he found that little blond girl.

He scowled, running his hand along the wall, straining his ears for another monster. Spray paint graffiti was on the bricks, all of it totally meaningless to him, but he read it anyway. Anything to get his mind off this weird fog world.

_Flame Purifies All._

_Where do you think you're ending up?_

_The Masked Man is coming for you. _

_Wish Young a happy 41st birthday for us._

Kraagor grimaced. He missed the simple profanity that generally decorated the city walls back home.

"Who are you?"

Kraagor perked at the young voice in the distance. There was a murmur responding to it, and the dwarf picked up his pace, trying to keep from limping.

"Why are you green? Are you sick?"

"No, I was born that way."

The alley opened to a narrow street. Kraagor immediately tensed up.

A goblin wearing little but a shredded, bloody white shirt and threadbare pants was standing in the street, a clawed hand resting possessively on the tiny head of a small black-haired human girl, no older than four or five, and his monstrous face turned up to the blond kid, who was sitting high on a brick wall, swinging her legs over the sides.

"I've never seen a green person before."

"Well, I'm not human. I'm a goblin." He pressed a finger to his lips, smiling past those savage tusks. "We're secretive, so you probably haven't seen one before."

"No, I haven't. Rachel said that goblins are make-believe, but she's lied before, so maybe she lied then, too."

The goblin took a step towards her, holding out a menacing hand. "Maybe you should come down here. That looks like a high wall. You could fall."

She looked like she was thinking about it for a moment.

The little girl already at the monster's side turned her head a little to look up the street, frowning, and her eyes snapped open wide.

"PAPA LOOK OUT!"

She was shoved out of the way hard enough to send her tumbling and the goblin spun just in time to see an ax coming for his head.

He jumped back, but the ax clipped his shoulder, making a deep knick in the flesh. Blood poured down in sticky streamers, causing the goblin to cry out in pain and clutch the wound with his hand, and Kraagor lunged.

"PAPA!"

The goblin went for a strangely shaped piece of metal at his hip, but Kraagor swung with his ax, forcing the monster to dodge. All that was going through the dwarf's mind was that he had to protect the children.

He swung again, but this one went wild because a sharp pain sent a shock from his side. He snapped his head down to see the little black-haired girl pulling her dagger out of the one spot at his waist that was unarmored and preparing for another stab.

"YOUNG! RUN!"

"Get off!" Kraagor shoved the brainwashed child into the wall, provoking frightened shrieks and an ominous cracking sound, and slammed a hand on the wound, cursing the need to hurt a kid to protect it.

"BASTARD!"

The goblin lunged, sending them tumbling to the ground, the ax skidding to the side, and slashed his claws into the dwarf's face.

"YOU! DON'T! TOUCH! MY! DAUGHTER!"

Kraagor heaved the goblin off roughly, scrambling up and wincing when he put too much weight on his knee, picking up his ax and bringing the butt of it down on the monster's skull.

"PAPA! PAPA, NO!"

Suddenly, a distant siren sounded.

The goblin backed up, the combined trauma to his head and furiously bleeding arm making him wobble until he fell to his knees, trying to stay awake, and Kraagor looked up in confusion, his vision clouding as the world started getting redder.

"What…?"

"Young!"

The goblin held out his hand and the little girl ran to him, wrapping her arms around his neck, allowing the monster to hold her close, grip weak, as if she were a babe.

Kraagor blinked, trying to concentrate on the girl. There was a red glow around her. She was the ember, and the world was set on fire.

The blond kid had disappeared.

He woozily fell to his knees and blacked out.

* * *

Tai was pulling off his pajama top when his sister sat up in bed, her face lined and tired as ever.

"What are you doing up so early?"

He turned around in place, trying to keep the worry from his eyes when his sister stood from the bed, looking ready to keel over. She had been sleeping fitfully all night, but had never really gotten coherent enough to get up and change into pajamas. That made him concerned. He had found her in the kitchen, asleep at the table with the redhead's jacket wrapped around her, and the old man had carried her into their room. Young was usually a light sleeper, so how she slept through that was beyond him.

"The old man told me that I had to do some BS martial arts stuff with him as punishment for jumping those guys."

"Don't call him that, Tai. If nothing else, he's given us a bed, clothes, and three hot meals a day. Give credit where credit's due." He frowned as she opened up her drawer, pulling out a jogger shirt and pants. "And besides, it'll be good to learn how to defend yourself."

"He's going to try to teach you, too."

"That's good. Maybe more exercise will help me sleep better."

Tai paused, staring at his sister, trying to read that face that had become so much harder to read for the last few days. He grabbed a shirt from his drawer and tugged it on, standing so they were on the same level. "Young, are you okay?"

"Mmm?" She turned to look at him, pulling off her own shirt to put on the new one. "It's only nightmares, Tai. I've always had them."

"Yeah, but not this bad."

He slid his hand in hers, making her pause. Their skins were hotter than they should have been, and at the contact, the back of Tai's hand started to itch madly. "Have they tried anything funny with you?"

She immediately shook her head, looking him in the eyes. "No, Tai. They haven't. Mr. Kim won't even touch me casually."

"You'd tell me if they did, right?"

She was quiet, that calculating look coming to her eyes, like it always did when she was reading someone.

"Tell me."

There was a beat, and then she softened.

"Tai, I love you. I wouldn't keep that to myself."

He nodded seriously, slipping his arm around her waist and hugging her close, allowing her to rest her face against his neck. "I love you too, Young. Don't shut me out."

She nodded, her breath leaving a warm spot on his neck, and pulled away, kissing his cheek sweetly. "I'm going for a jog. Don't stir up too much trouble while I'm gone."

"I'm not _that_ troublesome."

"Oh, yes you are. And I'm always stuck with cleaning up your mess." She pulled on the jogging pant, giving him a tired smile, and went to the door.

"Bah, you love it."

"I don't know. Maybe I'll ditch you at the side of the road one of these days."

Tai stuck out his tongue. Young mirrored him, the twins glaring for a moment, before bursting out laughing.

"Have a nice jog, Young."

"And have an at least passable training session, Tai."

Then she was gone.

Tai finished getting dressed, then slunk to the training room, slipping out of 'loving brother' mode and into 'moody teenager' mode.

The old man was already in there, dressed in a white robe-like outfit with a black belt around his waist. He was sitting on the floor in lotus position, eyes closed and hands resting lightly on his knees, expression creased with thought. He had a lot of lines in his face. It made him look even older.

It occurred to Tai that the old man really did look a lot like Young…

"I suggest joining me."

Tai jumped in surprise. The man opened those eerily gray eyes, resting them on the teenager.

"I doubt you will, though. You're not going to gain anything from meditation if you set your mind on how much you don't want to."

Tai scowled, running a hand through his shorn hair. The nuns had religiously kept all the boys with short haircuts—it annoyed him when he wanted something to fiddle with. "Hmph."

He turned away, absently wandering around the room and looking at all the equipment tucked in corners. There were a _lot_ of pointy things. Namely, swords and knives. Well, that was a little old-fashioned.

"I'm not looking to be an antagonist in your life."

Tai thought back, down to the deepest recesses of his memory. Lying on a bed with his mouth at a woman's breast, teeth beginning to grow. Sitting on a man's lap, his head tucked underneath the man's chin as he was read to from a storybook. He remembered their hands in his hair, their lips against his forehead, how utterly safe he felt with them in a confusing and terrifying world… and this pervert was trying to replace them.

He was an antagonist.

"Hmph."

The old man pulled his legs out of their crossed position, demonstrating amazing flexibility for his age, and stood, brushing himself off. "But, of course, safekeeping your wellbeing and growth takes precedence. If I must be your enemy to do so, so be it."

Tai threw a glare, pointedly turning his back to the man and walking along the wall, keeping his arms crossed, until something caught his eye.

There was a tiny ceremonial-looking table, hidden from the door's view by a punching bag. On it, there were shards of… something.

He picked one of the shards up. They were made of baked clay, and when he turned it around, he saw that there was a picture of half a dog on it, the other half being on another piece. He looked at another, finding a horse head, then a rooster, then a pig. It looked like they had formed a circle with all these different animals painted at the border, but someone had broken it.

"What's this?"

The old man walked to his side, arching an eyebrow, crossing his arms. "That? It's nothing, now." He turned his back to it, something a shade darker about his expression. "Come to the mat. We'll need the time before school."

His tone brooked no room for argument. Tai dropped the clay piece and frowned, steeling himself to be as difficult as possible, and walked after the man to the center of the room.

* * *

A/N: I edited this a lot, so I figured I'd just post it.


	4. Chapter 4

"Thank you, sir."

"You don't need to call me sir."

Soon finished pouring out the tea for Young, putting the kettle back on the stove and sitting across from her, sipping from his own mug. "I adopted you. Formality isn't necessary."

She nodded absently, pushing her wet hair out of her face and combing it with her fingers.

He repressed a frown of concern, nodding towards her cold toast. "Eat. You barely ate dinner last night."

Young looked up at him, then looked back down at her toast blankly.

"…I can't really hold anything down."

The frown escaped. Soon stood up, brow furrowing. "Really? For how long?"

"I don't think I'm sick. Just tired. They're only nightmares."

The paladin arched an eyebrow, going to a cabinet above the sink, the only overhead cabinet in the room that wasn't filled with pots and pans. "Our state of mind affects the state of our body." He pulled out a little thermometer, holding it out. "Humor me."

She paused, then took it, slipping it under her tongue. He crossed his arms, a little part of him that he had thought had gone away with Mijung aching to touch her. It had felt so nice to have her in his arms when he carried her to her bed the night before, but he tried to muffle the memory. He wasn't blind to the fact that the children were suspicious of his intentions, even if Young was less vocal about it. He refused to do anything that could possibly jeopardize her fragile faith in him, and he didn't want to push Tai away any further.

He leaned back against the counter, averting his eyes until the thermometer gave a cheerful beep. Young took it out of her mouth, showing him the screen without looking at it.

His frown tightened. "One-hundred and two. You won't be going to school today."

Young's eyebrows shot up and she looked down at the thermometer.

"Get dressed in something more comfortable than school clothes and get into bed. I'll inform a school official."

She looked back up, the color draining from her face. "But… I don't feel feverish…"

"Our senses deceive us sometimes."

She looked back at the thermometer, her complexion pallid.

"Go on. I'll see if I can find something light for you to eat."

He turned away, missing a flash of fear on her face, and began searching the cabinets for saltines.

"…Yes, sir."

She quickly gathered herself, throwing away her uneaten toast and putting the dishes in the washer, scurrying out fast. Soon looked back after her, frowning in thought, before taking out a small case of crackers and pouring a glass of water.

The darkness rippled, whipping out, and he had to stifle a flinch and a grunt of pain at the sudden burning lashed across his cheek.

He touched the spiritual wound, unable to stop the wince this time, and gave it a moment to fade.

The Evil was getting stronger.

He shook his head and walked down the hall, going into the children's room as Young was settling into bed and her brother, hair still sopping from the shower, was sitting on the edge.

Of course, Tai immediately looked up and glared at Soon. The paladin was starting to get numb to any and all dirty looks from the boy.

"My sister's coming to school."

He resisted the urge to sigh and put the crackers and water on the bedside table. "Not with a fever." He gave a small nod towards the girl, looking at her eyes for a moment. "You're clever. One day of missed classes won't bring you behind." Of course he knew that that wasn't really what the boy was concerned about, but he really did his best to put the whole concept out of his head as thoroughly as possible. The idea churned his stomach and, he had to admit, it stung to think that the children would suspect that of him.

"Then I'm missing them too." He gave an unconvincing cough. "I'm sick."

Soon frowned at him, arching an eyebrow. He was surprised that the boy still had the energy to demonstrate so much vitriol—the shock of his first training session had effectively muted Tai before he took a shower. "No harm's going to befall either of you. Go get your books. School begins in twenty minutes."

Tai glared, tensed like a puppy facing down a pit bull. "Make me."

Soon had to stifle another sigh. He really did have a long way to go.

Well, he couldn't say he wasn't to blame for that. He was the one who didn't investigate the nature of Mijung's unmaking beyond asking the gods.

"Tai, go to school."

Young's blessedly steady voice cut through his thoughts before they went down the dark road that had been taking hold of him of late. He blinked away the demons, feeling them gnaw at his heart, and concentrated on the here and now. On the children.

Tai looked at his sister, horror written on his face, and she gave a small smile. Even Soon could tell it was forced. "I'll be fine. Shoo."

"Young—"

"I said go to school."

Her voice was sharp, just the same way as Mijung's had been whenever she was beginning to get irritated. The effect made Soon's eyebrows go up again.

"But Young…"

The girl softened, then lightly punched his shoulder. "I'm sick. I just need some rest and I'll be fine."

"…"

Tai looked down and jumped off the bed. "Whatever you want."

He shoved his hands in his pockets, casting Soon one last venomous glare before leaving the room.

The paladin looked after him, stifling another sigh before turning his eyes to the girl. "Young, I made a promise to you. My word is my law."

The girl kept her eyes on her blanket, fiddling with it and staring at something he couldn't see. He began to walk to the door, resigned that he probably wasn't getting a response anytime soon.

"Please don't go."

He paused, then looked back at her, frowning in confusion. "Why? I was under the impression you were frightened."

She hugged her knees, looking towards the window, the Evil rippling. "If I'm alone, I'll fall asleep."

"…"

Soon sat on the bed next to hers, crossing his arms on his legs. "You need it. Rest helps you get over illness."

"No. It just scares me. It never helps." She shook her head, the lines in her face looking even deeper than before. It felt a little like he was looking at a feminine version of his own face—tired and worn down.

He resisted the urge to give the girl a hug.

"There is nothing to be frightened of. I won't allow you to be hurt again." He cocked his head, a disturbing thought lurking in the back of his mind, teasing him mercilessly. "Young?"

"Mmm?"

"Have you or your brother ever been taken advantage of?"

That seemed to pull her away from any dark thoughts holding her mind. She looked up at his eyes, difficult to read.

"You both seem… inordinately concerned with it."

His throat was constricting. His heart was pounding. His breath was coming quicker. It took him a few moments to piece together why his body was reacting so violently to this one little question, but when he realized, it only made the feeling worse.

He was afraid. He was afraid of what she would say.

She hugged her knees to her chest. "No. No one ever messed with us."

He had difficulty holding back a sigh of relief.

She rubbed her eye gently, averting her gaze. "But bad things happen to all of the adopted kids. Usually they were adopted by perverts, but if that doesn't happen, then there's a freak accident, like a house fire. There was always something wrong with the orphanage. The whole area."

"But you wanted to be adopted."

Young shrugged. "I'd rather have any of that happening to me than to be trapped in there anymore."

His stomach clenched, the memory of her offer on their first day of knowing each other gripping him for a moment. "That's not a healthy attitude, Young. No matter what you want, your body is not an acceptable payment." He stood up, trying to mentally shake the image out of his head. "I'm going to bring you more blankets. Try to eat. I'll be back in a moment." With that, he left.

She didn't stop him this time.

He heard the door to outside slam. Well, Tai wasn't there anymore. He worried that his presence was driving a stake through the twins, but he wasn't sure how to go about fixing that. He had faith that their relationship would mend itself when Tai began to feel less on edge. If Tai began to feel less on edge.

He sighed, looking up and down the hallway. It was a warm place, but ever since he had brought the children there, the warmth seemed artificial, like a badly-made mask. One side of the hall was lined with windows while the other with five doors, a sixth one at the end. Before, the walls, even the second floor, had resonated with positive feelings—the happiness of generations of loving well-adjusted families. Now it was saturated in something horrible that he didn't dare name, to the point where he had blocked the second floor from anyone going up there. Sometimes, darkness takes a form. He could swear he heard thumping above them at night.

Soon tried to shake off the thoughts, but they were already going down a bad road and the blackness in the air only served to weigh him down.

Mijung.

Every night, the image of his wife trapped in hell overtook him. He imagined all sorts of horrific scenarios, wondering how on Earth a noblewoman used to working in a magic academy could take care of herself in a world like the one Young described. Mijung… how must it have felt for her? Living in fear for her life every day, learning how to survive alone, trying to raise two children _he should have been there for_…

He was knocked out of that train of thought when a fist connected with his shoulder.

The paladin jerked in surprise, looking to see who had just hit him, only to find a familiar redhead glaring at him.

The men stared at each other for a while.

Girard crossed his arms and wordlessly brushed past.

Soon looked after him for a moment, waiting until he was out of sight, then gave a small nod of thanks.

He turned away again, going to the linen closet and pulling out two thick wool blankets. He doubted that Young would need them, but seeing as it was winter and she was ill, he wanted her to have them close by just incase.

By the time he got to the bedroom again, she was asleep, her face creased in sleep and her hands moving restlessly. He paused, then, keeping his footsteps quiet, he went to the foot of her bed and lay the blankets down before stepping back and observing her.

He didn't know it was possible for a single person to remind him so intensely of two different people until he had met the children. Tai looked a lot like his mother, but it was difficult to hold onto that when he kept twisting his expression in such awful looks of hate and suspicion. In comparison, Young looked more like him, but he still couldn't help but think of _her_ when he looked at the girl.

But even Mijung in the wake of their first and only miscarriage, an awful event that took its toll on both of them, didn't have such a consistent expression of exhaustion by day and terror in sleep. And when Mijung had been in pain then, he had been able to hold her. He didn't dare hold the girl. He didn't dare to even touch her without explicit necessity. For some reason, that made the ache to hold her even harder to ignore. The ache to hold either of them.

She whimpered softly in her sleep and turned to her side, curling in a fetal position.

He frowned, thinking for a moment. His paladin abilities were leaving him for sure at this point. He was okay with that, but he had never done Evil, so he hadn't officially fallen.

He wondered if he could still call on the power of Good.

He shifted to the side of her bed, kneeling so he was face-level with the girl. Tentatively, he brushed his fingers against her forehead, her skin a little too hot against his own.

Black magic shuddered, searing his face, and he could swear that he saw an outline of a rune on her skin for a moment.

He leaned forward and lightly brushed his lips against her brow.

_"I told you to stay here with the kids."_

_"One person can't get all the food we need."_

_"And if we both get offed, Young and Tai don't stand a chance."_

_The subjects of conversation gurgled sleepily in their makeshift crib, cuddled close and huddled under the thickest blanket the adults were able to find. Mijung looked at them briefly before breaking into a coughing fit, covering her mouth with her sleeve._

_"And now you're sick. You shouldn't be around the children."_

_"And I'm their main source of food. What do you think is worse for them, Yutrin? Getting sick or not eating?"_

_The goblin sitting on the edge of the bed sighed, his ears drooping, and he just continued to dab a clotting slice in the woman's arm with antiseptic. "Mijung, I'm doing my best."_

_"Well, maybe treating my like an invalid isn't a very good 'best'," the woman snapped, glaring at him. The dim light coming from the window only accentuated the dark circles under her eyes and stress lines carved in her flesh, making each and every scar on her face look a thousand times more obvious. _

_"I'm not asking you to stay back because I think you're an invalid, Mijung," the goblin said quietly, finishing his cleaning and setting aside the soiled cloth before looking at their meager first aid kit again. "I promised I'd take care of you and the kids. That's what I'm trying to do. Especially right now, they need their mother. Their immune system is based off yours, and the longer they have that as support, the better. Someone needs to stay here to watch over them and someone needs to find food. We all know which is the more dangerous job. Let's face it: I'm the most expendable of either of us." _

_She tore her arm away from him, standing up and looking like she was inches from hitting him. "Will you stop calling yourself…? ! Ugh, never mind. Never you mind, Yutrin." She paused only to cover her mouth and let out another fit of violent coughing. The goblin stood up, concern written on his face, but the woman jerked away from him. "Don't touch me!"_

_The goblin held out his hands, gold eyes staying fixed on her. "Calm down, Mijung. You're being unreasonable. Just sit down for a moment and let me wrap up that cut."_

_"_I'm_ being unreasonable? I'm not the one who insists on going out there all alone when I'm needed!"_

_"Mijung, we need to eat. You especially, seeing as you're meant to be feeding two people besides. I leave so we can survive, not so I can go out gambling or something." He reached out one clawed hand, resting it on her cheek and running his thumb along it. "I know it's dangerous and you don't like it. Trust me, I don't like it either. But our priority needs to be the kids, and they need you more than they need me."_

_She slapped her hand away, her face getting red. "What are you trying to do? Get killed? Are you too much of a coward to do it to yourself that you're just running around hoping that a monster will do it for you?"_

_He flinched visibly. "Mijung, I stopped m—"_

_"Oh yeah, you stopped yourself, but if a monster does it, then it's not your fault, right? Is that why? Do we not give you enough meaning? Do _I_ not give you enough meaning?"_

_"Mijung, you know I—"_

_"Why the hell do you do this? Why are you even helping if you can't stand life so much? They're not yours. No matter what the hell you do, they're never going to be yours!"_

_The moment it left her lips, she obviously regretted it. The anger disappeared from her face and she covered her mouth, as if that would somehow keep the words from coming out, but the honest hurt that flashed across the goblin's face before his expression darkened said quite clearly that it couldn't be unsaid. _

_"Yutrin, I…"_

_"I know they're not mine, Mijung. And I know you're not mine. I know that none of that's ever going to change."_

_She flinched at his tone, immediately walking up to him. "No, Yutrin, please—" she cupped his face in her hands, but he pushed her away, the cold in his eyes palpable._

_"I'm not deluding myself into thinking I can somehow be a part of your family. I'm a goblin. Regardless of what you say, I know that you'll never move past that." _

_She shook her head, her eyes looking a little more glassy and her lip trembling slightly. "No, I—"_

_He waved off her protest impatiently. "I'm doing what I can to keep a promise, but if you don't want my help, I'll go." _

_Color drained from her face. "Please—"_

_"The only reason I don't go is because I have more integrity than to leave a single mother of two out in the wilderness. If you're only keeping me around to be an extra hand, tell me. I don't like being toyed with. Then again, maybe it was assumed I knew that." _

_Mijung shook her head again, having to bite her lip hard for a moment. "Yutrin, I'm s—"_

_"Save your breath, Mijung. I know you meant it." He brushed past her, something to the gesture much more painful than any violence he could have dealt. "I'm going to go cool off." _

_Giving her one of the darkest looks ever, he turned away and left._

_Tai sat up in his crib making little whimper sounds in the back of his throat while Young rolled over and sat up, staring. _

_"Damn it. Why do I treat him like this…?"_

_She sank back down on the bed, covering her mouth, her shoulders beginning to tremble. "Why did I have to throw that in his face?" _

_Tai leaned his forehead on the cradle bars and made little cooing sounds. _

_She leaned forward and hid her face from the children, sobbing softly. "Yutrin, please come back. I don't want to be alone again."_

_Tai only cooed softly one more time._

Soon recoiled, stifling a cry of pain and covering his face. For a moment, his skin felt crispy and burnt.

The feeling left, but he removed his hands to find that he had first degree burns on his fingers and his lips.

He looked at the ground, trying desperately to regain his composure and slow down his heartbeat. Mijung…

"Mmm."

He perked in surprise and looked up at the girl only to see the ghost of a smile on her face, the lines smoothing out. He sighed softly in relief despite the unease that was now clenching in his chest. He'd taken away at least some of the darkness. Maybe she would be able to rest easy for the day.

He lightly touched her hair and gave her forehead a quick kiss, ignoring the pain of the burns, and stood up.

"Sleep well."

And then he was gone.

* * *

A/N: Posted. Now sleeeeeeeep...


	5. Chapter 5

_His breath came out in a cloud, the cold out of place inside the building. Or it would have been out of place if he hadn't been living in this hellhole for over a year. _

_Had he attempted this when he had first found himself in this town, he would have gotten hopelessly lost. Luckily, there were street signs intact on the corners. He stayed on the corner of Munson Street and Nathan Avenue near Rosewater Park and by Toluca Lake. That's all he needed to know to find his way back again. _

_At the moment, it was really difficult to visualize going back. _

_He sat on the edge of the stage, staring up at the neon 'Heaven's Night' sign on the wall. How the electricity still worked was beyond him. He and Mijung usually had to rely on flashlights and candles to see when daylight was gone (and, of course, he used the term 'daylight' loosely). Then again, there were prices to pay for the Baldwin Mansion's safety. _

_Safety. The concept felt so strange. He had thought he had been unsafe in his village? _

_He had no idea. _

_Yutrin leaned back, the top of his head brushing against the pole fixed on the stage. It felt strange to be looking out at such an empty room. There were round tables with menus on them, surrounded by chairs, and a bar beside the neon sign that was looking really tempting at the moment. _

_But he couldn't take a drink. If he did, he wouldn't be able to stop, and he wouldn't be able to fight if he were attacked by a monster. _

_Why was that such a bad thing? Just a few drinks. It'd numb everything. Sex and alcohol were the only ways for him and Mijung to de-stress at all these days. And if a monster came around, that was okay. They were only postponing the inevitable by running. It'd be so much easier to just give in and let it happen…_

_He shook his head, trying to dislodge the idea, but it clung to his mind with razor teeth. Why _did_ he do this? Why was he trying to help her? Help her children? Those not-quite-chubby-enough cheeks, soft skin, tiny hands, pretty little eyes… they belonged to someone else. Someone who would have killed him and any _real_ children of his in a moment back home._

_Real children? _

_Of course real. Mijung said so herself—her children weren't his. He wasn't welcome to father them, only to take care of them. So why should he care? Why couldn't he just lie back and let the monsters get him?_

_For a moment, he was ready to walk up to that bar. He leaned forward, starting to put his weight on his legs to stand, but something, his conscience, pulled him back. _

_What would happen if he weren't around? Mijung would go crazy. She would go crazy without him as surely as he would go crazy without her. Then what would happen to those children? They would either waste away and die or be nurtured by a woman who may or may not be able to tell the difference between reality and hell anymore. Didn't he owe her more than that? He may have been helping her take care of the kids, but it wasn't just out of the goodness of his heart. He _needed_ her. She saved him from going nuts. Leaving her, no matter how passively, had to earn him a special place in hell. _

_At least… at least as long as there really was a just god in this world. If there was a just god, he'd never be forgiven for it._

_He shivered, bringing his knees up to his chest and hugging them. He wished…_

_He wished for a lot of things._

_Yutrin sighed softly, resting his forehead against his knees and trying to keep his teeth from chattering. The anger had faded, leaving only the hurt. He should have assumed that the feelings he had for Mijung and her children weren't mutual. They probably weren't even real—just some kind of need for him to believe that he cared. She kept him because she needed him. He kept _her_ because he needed her. They weren't together for any other reason. He shouldn't have lost sight of that._

_"This is an interesting place to cool off."_

_Yutrin jumped in surprise, landing on his feet and spinning around, grabbing his gun from his hip and aiming in one swift movement._

_A human woman was leaning against one of the two doors on either side of the stage, a slight smile on her face. She didn't have any visible weapons and her stance was completely unthreatening, but every hair on Yutrin's body stood on end, something inside of him profoundly uneasy. Then again, he was profoundly uneasy with everyone he had met in this place save for Mijung and most children. _

_The woman tilted her head to the side, her eyes resting on him with the same interest as one would have in a vaguely engaging conversation. There was nothing intense there, but it felt like the temperature had dropped even lower. His breath came out in glimmering crystals and tremors were beginning to really rack his body, making it difficult to keep the gun trained. _

_"I'm not going to hurt you. I don't like getting my hands dirty." _

_She started to stroll forward, looking down at her fingers and cleaning the nails nonchalantly, as if she didn't notice the weapon pointed at her head. "And it would be a pity to see someone so interesting be wasted like that. I have to admit, I'm fascinated by you. We don't have your kind here." _

_Yutrin's ears twitched from the tension and he backed up, keeping the gun straight. "Who are you?"_

_"Cordelia Carroll, at your service." She looked up again. Her blue eyes were a little too pale to be comforting, and her black clothes only served to highlight how pallid her skin was and how white her blond hair looked. "You don't need to be frightened, though I could understand why you are."_

_"What do you want?"_

_"My, how hostile." The woman chuckled softly. The timbre of her voice sounded like it should have been soothing, but it wasn't. It was unnerving. "I want to make you an offer. I want to offer you a chance to go back to your home."_

_Yutrin froze. _

_"I see I got your attention. I'll elaborate." She pulled out a chair from one of the tables and sat down, crossing her legs. "The people here are powerful. We could open up the rift that left you here and deliver you home. Or, if you would rather, make you look like one of us and help you try your luck in the world outside of this place, where there are no monsters and no one will chase you down because of what you are. You won't need to be afraid anymore."_

_His mouth felt a little like paper. He struggled to swallow, his gun hand shaking for reasons other than the cold. "You… you could do that?"_

_She laced her fingers together in her lap and her smile got a little more pronounced. "Of course. We know the gods of this place. They can do many things for us, for you, if they only have a small token in exchange."_

_He ran a dry tongue against his teeth, his heart pounding in his ears. "What would it be?"_

_"Nothing consequential. Just a couple little somethings which were ours in the first place." The woman leaned forward, now her eyes completely on the goblin. "The little children you have been taking care of."_

_"Wait, what?" His gun strayed for a moment in surprise, eyes wide. "Tai and Young? You want me to give you Tai and Young?"_

_"The boy can wait, if you absolutely insist on it. Boys always come on their own once they're old enough, but girls sometimes try to dodge their… responsibilities. They need to be taught. Their roles in the grand scheme of things are so much more important, don't you agree?"_

_Yutrin blinked in shock, his mouth open slightly. "You're asking me to give you babies for freedom!"_

_"Babies that you have no responsibility for." The woman tilted her head again. Every part of her demeanor would be more fitting for a discussion over the best way to commute to work or what the weather would probably be like tomorrow. "Their mother admitted it herself. You had no part in their creation and yet she pins you with the stress of twin children. But you know who _did_ make them." _

_She leaned forward, crossing her arms on the table, the air swirling around her. "A creature you've had to fear your whole life. Something that callously cuts down all your people because you look different. The reason your family, your friends, your entire village are all gone. He would have killed _your _wife and children without hesitation. Or maybe he would keep your daughter and wife for himself, like so many of the other crusaders. Can you tell me why you afford him the kindness of taking care of the family he left to die?"_

_Yutrin opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, the gun falling to his side slowly. "I… Mijung, she…"_

_"Oh yes, their mother. Do you love her?"_

_The gun was now hanging uselessly beside him, the color draining from his face. "I…"_

_"She doesn't give you much reason to, does she? Here you are, breaking your back to help her and her offspring, and yet she still treats you like dirt."_

_"No she d—"_

_"She'll never move past your color. She'll never move past _him_. But she'll always act entitled to your help because isn't it a privilege for your kind to be allowed to serve hers?" she crooned softly, her head tilting again and the smile growing. "I've seen it happen, friend. Yours is not the only world with discrimination." _

_Yutrin stared, then shook his head, backing away and narrowing his eyes warily. He played with the idea of pointing his gun again. How did she find out about any of those things? "How do you know this? Any of this? I've never seen you before in my life!"_

_The woman smiled, glancing around the dilapidated club, looking at the neon signs as if she were actually interested. "You think you know this place, friend. It knows you better. It knows things about you that you don't know yourself. I only know how to read what it sees. You want to go and be safe. You deserve it."_

_Yutrin shook his head violently. "No. They're small children. I'm not going to hand them over to get away from here!"_

_"Oh really?" That smile made the room a thousand times colder. "How many times have you sat by them and wondered if they were destined to turn out just like their father?" _

_His voice caught in his throat._

_He didn't respond._

_"I won't ask for an answer now. That'd be rude. Besides, it seems like you have things to think about." She stood up, her smile changing to a smirk. "The Baldwin Mansion still has working clocks, yes? Of course it does. Ernest always liked to tinker with those things and couldn't stand them to be a second off. Midnight, meet me back here with your decision."_

_She brushed past him, his skin tingling where she touched. "Freedom is a day away, Yutrin." _

_And she was gone._

"Wake up!"

Soon sat up suddenly, every muscle in his body tensed, ready to fight, but Girard only scowled and sat across from him at the table. The paladin blinked fast to regain composure, instinctively trying to get a sense from Girard's expression to understand what was happening.

Girard was hard to read, but not because he was good at hiding emotion. It was because he always had too many emotions that kept changing too fast, so Soon had trouble getting the hang of picking up on the individual ones; the only consistent thing in the illusionist's expression was intense dislike.

"The kid was having a nap. Why's she here?"

Soon pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, gathering his bearings after that charged dream, and quietly filed the vision away in his mind to examine later. The Darkness had gotten past his barriers. It was starting to make its way into his mind and soul.

"She's sick and has a high fever, so I decided to keep her from school today."

"Hmph." Girard leaned back, his demeanor anything but inviting. Soon was feeling a little tired of Girard's constant hostility and silence. Even during their journey, while the illusionist's anger was always quick to ignite, it was quick to cool as well. This wasn't what Soon was used to.

"Girard—"

"You have work outside of the house, right?" the redhead cut in, tone harsh and abrasive. Soon had to stifle a tired sigh.

"Of course." Soon straightened, tilting his head to the side, and he could tell by Girard's twisting expression that something was making him angry (well, angri_er_). "But that can easily wait until Young is better."

"I doubt her immune system's any good. That could take a week. Or more." Girard looked down at his sleeve, picking at it and hiding his feelings the only way he knew how. "Go do your work. I'm staying here anyway, so she won't be alone."

Soon frowned in confusion. "That's… generous."

"Hey, she's a nice kid, okay?" Girard snapped, his face flashing with something akin to… guilt? "I try to get her to eat something if she wakes up and let her sleep the rest of the time. Easy. I don't like having you falling asleep all over the kitchen where I'm going to have to deal with you. Go fall asleep somewhere else. Preferably a train track."

"Your charm never ceases to amaze me, Girard."

That earned a glare.

Soon glanced at the door, thinking for a moment. "I hesitate to take your offer. She's a troubled girl."

Girard snorted. "I think that's a little much. She's toting around some kind of demonic magic and she's probably on the edge of malnutrition, but she seems bright enough."

"Girard," Soon started softly, forcing every word, "she's convinced we're going to take advantage of her."

"Wait, what?" The illusionist looked up, the anger wiped away from his face, leaving only shock. "What?"

"I think that was a curse on the orphanage. At least, what Young described sounded like a curse. Most of the children were adopted by men interested in… using them. Tai and Young don't think we're different."

The illusionist did nothing but shocked blinking for a while, his mouth open slightly. "Then why did they agree to be adopted?"

He felt a pang in his chest and his throat constricted for a moment, but he soothed it away enough so that it wasn't audible. "Young believed that being adopted was better than staying in the orphanage."

"Wait, she… she was going to…" Girard put a hand to his temple, his face getting red again. "When the hell were you planning on telling me this? ! I know it's not exactly something to bring up in polite conversation, but maybe a little _warning_ would have been nice so I didn't freak the kids out by accident!"

"I never had a chance to tell you. This is the longest conversation we've had in the two months we've been in this world."

That made Girard pause.

Soon averted his eyes, having difficulty working out the knot in his throat. "If I leave, I need your word that you won't invade her personal space. She and her brother have been damaged over the years. I don't want them to be hurt anymore."

"Sure, yes, whatever you want!" Girard's body jerked and he shook his head, staring at the table. "Gods. No, I won't get too close or anything. As far as she knows, there'll be nothing but sunshine and rainbows. Is this why Tai's so scrappy all the time?"

Soon nodded, frowning tightly. "He takes a more aggressive approach than his sister."

"Gods. And I just thought he liked making trouble." Girard grimaced, making a waving motion with his hand. "Go. Do whatever you're doing to exorcise that stuff from them. She'll be fine."

Soon paused, studying Girard's face, and finally stood up. "Thank you."

Girard didn't look at him when he walked out.

* * *

The girl was still lying on the bed, hugging the pillow and snuggled deep in the covers. With every breath she took, the Evil swelled, getting darker and thicker and making the darkness of the room feel a thousand times more ominous.

A man was sitting at the edge of her bed, staring at her face pensively, eyes glowing dark purple before he leaned forward, the Evil clawing at every fiber of his being, and rested his palm on the girl's forehead.

"Keep sleeping."

The Evil rippled again. When Soon had been in the house, the black had been at an all-time low, almost bearable to be around, but it was growing again, like some kind of weed. She was always at the center of it.

He grimaced and tried to push that train of thought away.

Girard steeled himself, then leaned forward until his face was a breath from hers. It was so much easier to be near her when her eyes were closed.

"What do you want more than anything?"

The Evil shifted, giving her consciousness room to float just below the surface, hovering between dreams and consciousness.

"Family."

Quiet, but still audible. Girard made a small circle with his thumb on her forehead, setting his jaw grimly against the increasingly painful burning sensation in his hand. "Then have it."

_"You're wonderful, Yutrin." _

_Young, old enough to stop but not healthy enough to lose the source of nutrition, was suckling from her mother's breast as Papa sat beside Mommy, giving a genuine smile and holding out a piece of a strange fruit covered with seeds on the inside. "I was lucky to find it, but I found a working fridge up in one of the diners across the lake, and I remembered you saying how much you liked pomegranates."_

_His smile became shy, the stress lines smoothed, and he looked just like a man in love. Mommy smiled, blinking a little fast, and reached over, picking one of the seeds delicately and putting it in her mouth, biting once, then savoring the taste for half a minute before she bit again, then finally swallowed. "Thank you."_

_She tweaked Young's nose lightly, making her pull off of her mother's breast. "Young, you should try one. So should your brother."_

_Young nodded, licking excess milk from her lips and Mommy's breast quickly before crawling on the bed, poking Tai's napping form on the pillow. "Wake up, sleepy." _

_Papa shifted so he was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed and pulled Mommy toward him, snuggling close, and she reciprocated gladly in a rare public show of affection, resting her head on his shoulder before picking up Young and Tai, placing the twins in front of them, and the fruit was put in the middle. One by one, each person plucked a seed, sometimes feeding it to someone else, sometimes feeding themselves. Mommy picked a particularly fat seed from the fruit, reaching up and brushing Papa's lips with it, putting it in his mouth slowly, letting her fingers linger. _

_"Thank you, Yutrin." _

"No fair! You cheated!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

Tai stuck out his tongue. "Not my fault you're bad at checkers."

Young huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and letting her lower lip come out a little. "I don't like this game. Let's play Connect Four."

"No fair, you always win that game!"

"Well you always win this one!"

"I know a solution to your problem!"

Rodney, the biggest kid in the playroom (most of the BIG big kids were outside), sat down with a loud 'plop!' beside them, dropping a Monopoly box on top of their checker board, sending the checker pieces skidding across the playroom floor, probably to be stuffed in Caleb's nose and/or mouth some point soon. "We're playing this game!"

Tai wrinkled his nose and Young pouted harder. "You're the only one who knows how to play!"

"And you always take the dog piece!"

"And I don't think the banker's allowed to rob the bank!"

Rodney scowled, puffing out his chest so he looked even bigger. "Well, you're both a bunch of babies. We're playing what I say we're playing."

Tai and Young glared, then glanced at each other, a smirk growing on both their faces.

Rodney always pushed around the smaller kids, and they went along since they were disorganized. It never occurred to him that maybe picking on twins was a bad idea.

"What are you doing?"

The boy and girl looked back at him, their Cheshire grins stretching across their faces.

"NO MORE MONOPOLY!"

With a great battle cry, the twins jumped as one and tackled the boy to the ground, wrestling to keep him down.

"SISTER DIANA! SISTER DIANA THEY'RE ATTACKING MEEEEEEE!"

The nun looked up from her harried attempts to get Caleb to cough up the checkers piece he had tried to swallow, her lips pursing so hard they were white. "Lord, give me patience. Tai! Young! Get over here!"

"Run!"

They burst away from the big kid, skidding out of the door to the thick snowy landscape outside, and started to run, leaving the furious shouts from nuns and children behind and only bringing their own laughter.

_"Why are you crying?" _

_Young froze, then promptly shrank, scrubbing her eyes quickly before spinning around to face her mother. "I'm not crying, Mommy." _

_She swallowed nervously, hoping for her mother's good humor. When she or Tai cried too much because of fear, Mommy usually spanked them really hard because they couldn't break down when there were things that needed to be done. _

_"You were crying. Your eyes are red." Mommy sat on the bed Young and Tai shared, crossing her arms and gesturing for the girl to sit. _

_"I'm sorry, Mommy. You don't need to spank me, I know I shouldn't…" Young mumbled softly, crawling up the bed and creeping towards the middle, trying to make her bum look as inconspicuous as possible._

_"You don't need to walk on eggshells." Mommy looked away, lost in thought briefly. "Maybe I don't get it across well, but you're allowed to cry here, in this house, when there's nothing attacking. I just don't want you crying when you have to protect yourself—you'd only die that way." Mommy didn't look as stressed or tired as usual. Young knew then that Mommy and Papa had done that 'private' thing in their room, maybe the night before or that day. _

_Mommy took her satchel off, laying it in her lap and undoing the clasp. "Here. I found this lying in the storage warehouse. I want you to have it."_

_She pulled out a strange furry brown thing with soft limbs, a black plastic nose, a sewn smile, and black plastic eyes. Young eyed it curiously, noticing that it wasn't moving but still not ruling out the possibility that it would burst to life and Mommy would tell her to kill it._

_"You've never seen one of these, have you?"_

_Young shook her head. "No, Mommy. What is that?" _

_Mommy paused for a moment, looking down at the furry thing with a strange expression. "No, of course not. You've never seen one before," she murmured softly enough for Young to have to strain to hear her. She shook herself, looking at her daughter and giving a tired smile. "This is called a teddy bear, Young. It's soft, it's cuddly, and it'll never hurt you, so you can sleep with it at night and you don't need to be scared." _

_Young cocked her head, then Mommy gave her the teddy bear carefully. It was really light, and there wasn't anything sharp or weapon-like on it, no matter how much the girl ran her hands along its soft fur. _

_"It's so… harmless."_

_That made Mommy smile. "Completely harmless, Young. When you're here alone without me or Papa or Tai to hug you, I want you to hug this teddy bear and imagine it taking away all the bad feelings. It'll be your friend. It'll never be mean or leave or make you feel sad. It'll make you happy." _

_She hesitated, then touched the girl's cheek, leaning forward and kissing her forehead. "Every time you hug Teddy, you hug me and Papa. No matter where we are." She slowly pulled away. "You'll never be alone." _

Girard shuddered, the emotions battering his heart, mingling with his own, but he pulled away with a practiced gesture and filtered out the sad overtones from the storm, leaving the love and humor and care. Soothing his own frenzied thoughts to better work with the girl's, he carefully constructed a plausible phantom of Mijung and that strange goblin man from what Young's memories and Soon's occasional descriptions said about either of them.

He thought of a place quickly, coming up with a quaint little house that he once stayed at during a solo adventure, and set the house for two children and a couple. He smoothed the lines embedded in the faces of the mother and the goblin, carefully pulling out any harshness or haunting, and placed them in the house, smiling and laughing with each other, before brushing off a phantom of Tai, removing most of the aggression he showed Soon and Girard, and put him in the house as well. As one finishing touch, he quietly weaved in the love displayed in her memories, putting it together so well that no one would be able to tell that it hadn't been there in the first place.

Girard pulled away, wiping his brow and letting out a sigh. At the moment, Young was dreaming of waking up in a soft warm bed with the sound of laughter filtering in through the floorboards and the smell of breakfast beginning to entice her downstairs to the family. It was so vivid that she would be able to feel the brush of her teddy bear's fur against her cheek on the pillow, the sunlight falling from the window on her bed, and see the dust motes floating in the beams left from the sky.

A smile came to her sleeping face.

Making fantasy seem like reality was an art, and a very taxing one at that. Trying to make an illusion that convincing and detailed took a lot out of him, but she was smiling.

The illusionist sighed softly, cracking his knuckles and tying off the spell. One good dream. One really, really good dream to make up for the bad ones.

He stood up from the bed, taking a deep breath as the Evil lightened just a little, and then he slipped away again.

* * *

"So, why do you want these records, Mr. Kim?" the nurse asked casually, forcing open one of the many filing cabinets crowding the hospital archive room. "Sorry about this. We never got around to putting most of these things on the computer once we had a digital archive system set up."

"Not at all. Let me know if there is something I can do to help." Soon crossed his arms, flicking his eyes from cabinet to cabinet. "Putting together records of my adoptive children's medical histories will probably be important in case one of them gets sick. Also, I would like to know if a therapist evaluated them, since I believe one of the nuns alluded to that."

The nurse checked the label on the open cabinet, probably taking more time than she had to. "Probably. It's policy to give any abused or abandoned kids a psych eval. before we send them to a social worker or orphanage. One of our major donors works in the field and it's a bit of a crusade of hers to integrate free psychological and psychiatric care into hospitals, but I'm not sure exactly what year she made the donation, so it may not have been in effect when those kids were found." The woman smiled at him, batting her eyelashes a little before flicking through the files. One would have thought that his age would deter young ladies like her, but apparently no. "Here, I think I found them."

She plucked two relatively thin files from the cabinet, holding them out to him. "The copier guy is fixing a paper jam right now. You can read the original while we wait."

Soon nodded, giving her a small smile and a 'Thank you' before opening up the folder on top, Tai's.

_Name: Unknown, Tai_

_Age: Unknown_

_Sex: M_

_Eyes: Brown_

_Hair: Black_

_Injuries: Patient was brought to the hospital by police and found to be malnourished with a vitamins A, C, and D deficiency, a fever of 103º, an inner-ear infection, a roughly three day-old healing abrasion on his chest that may have come from a knife, bruises on his torso and back, and a second-degree burn on the back of his right hand, which covered scabbed abrasions on the same area. When examined by Dr. Achat, at least four healed fractures were found, but an X-ray was not authorized because it could not be paid for. Patient was evaluated for psychological damage by Dr. Bard. _

Soon grimaced. He didn't remember ever seeing someone who actually endured any kind of injury longer than a few hours. There were many clerics, and their presence allowed for the populace to rarely endure physical ailments for long. What did it feel like to get hurt and wait for it to heal naturally?

He suppressed a sigh, flipping through a few diagrams of the injuries and reports from the doctor, only pausing to look at the reports of the boy's recovery (he stifled another sigh of relief when he saw that everything healed well without complication), and stopped when he found the evaluation from the psychologist.

_Reason for Referral: This is the fifth inpatient admission for this 9 to 11 year old, orphaned, Oriental male who has presumably been homeschooled his entire life and is now pending transfer from St. Carroll Hospital to the Gillespie's Home for orphans. He was admitted due to displaying symptoms of severe abuse and trauma._

Soon stopped for a moment, frowning and skipping past all the medical descriptions of the tests administered, though surprisingly, there wasn't any kind of coherent format to the evaluation beyond that. It was just pages of words without any kind of category to put them in, which seemed a little strange, since Soon knew hospitals to be places obsessed with organization. Come to think of it, a lot of things about this place was a little… unorganized.

He filed the thought away in his mind, temporarily shrugging it off. Criticizing a hospital's practices wasn't why he came here. He came to read, so that was what he would do.

_The first thing I noticed about Tai is that he refused to separate from his sister, and she from him, to the point where I had to have my sessions with them together or else have a sullen, unresponsive, and extremely unruly child on my hands. Tai's strong attachment seems to stem from the idea that she will disappear if he doesn't keep a close eye on her, and he seems to think of her as a kind of security blanket: if she is there, then nothing bad can really happen. The children maintain an idea that there are 'monsters' that only Young can see that she protects Tai from, which probably contributes to his separation anxiety. More on that in Young's report._

_Tai is very unresponsive towards anyone's attempts to make a connection with him and seems to only show affection for his sister. He is consistently distrustful and often tries to refuse medical treatment, insisting that his father be the one to administer it. His social skills are underdeveloped and he does not know how to interact with the other kids in a playroom, often not recognizing common items, such as a bottle, a pacifier, a board game, or finger paints, for example. When shown a doll or a ball, he mentions that such items belong to children by the names of Scarlet, Miriam, and Billy, and it seems that that association is the only reason why he recognizes the toys at all. When asked about these playmates, all he says is that Scarlet doesn't like to play with anyone besides her dolls, and that Billy and Miriam are twins like he and his sister who are fun to play with, but since they frighten Young, he doesn't see them often. When asked further about any playmates, he often becomes unresponsive, but he has named a small handful of children besides the aforementioned—Laura, Alessa, Josh, Nora, Joey, and Hanna—and only vaguely describes them, since he says he doesn't speak with them often. I suspect that most of these children are imaginary friends or symbols for him to disassociate with memories of abuse, as he inserts that all of these children, Laura excepted, frighten his sister. _

_When interacting with children his age, he demonstrates an interest in playing, but doesn't know many of the games and doesn't know how to solve conflicts with words. Instead, he either tries to beat up the other child or run away when there is a fight. When a nurse chastised him and told him to use words and compromise, he had to have her explain explicitly what she meant, as the concept using this method to solve problems with anyone other than his sister or parents was foreign. When told to apologize to a girl he had punched (there is an implication of his father abusing either Young or his mother here—he draws no distinction between hitting boys or hitting girls as most boys his age do), he simply stated that apologies were only for family and required significant coaxing to apologize. He has a general disregard for the other children and is content with playing by himself or with his sister exclusively. _

_I would date his social skills with strangers to be at the level of a developing five year old, with little sense for the feelings of others, but his sense of his sister and her autonomy is more mature, with a surprisingly complex sense of her separate desires, needs, and behavior, mainly related to himself, close to the awareness of a mature preteen or teenager. He does not demonstrate any kind of sensitivity to the difference between the separate sexes, often walking in on the nurses bathing the elderly patients with little more than indifference to the sight of the old men and women (usually the only interest he shows is in the fact they are old), and he insists on bathing with his sister, a habit that the Catholic orphanage that is offering to take them will surely break him of. _

_I hypothesize that he's a socially maladjusted child between the ages of nine and eleven with severely stunted growth due to poor treatment and nutrition. His parents likely treated him and Young as one unit and kept them locked in their house, a hypothesis that is supported by the fact they claim to have grown up in Silent Hill, but the town has no record of any kind of identification or birth certificate. _

_When asked about his parents or confronted with the suggestion that they abused him, Tai is extremely defensive and despondent. He and Young have stated that they witnessed their father being murdered and they heard their mother's screams as she was murdered as well, but the police have declined to investigate since no one had turned up missing that day and no bodies were found, and the children's account is unreliable, seeing as they have warped the memories to the point where they are convinced their father was a goblin, their mother was a wizard (who couldn't do magic as she had lost her spell book), and they were being protected from a cult bent on using them to summon a divine being. I am working on arranging a way to rehabilitate the children to remind them that there is no such thing as magic or goblins, as I don't think they have a very concrete grasp of their actual memories and reality. _

_Nevertheless, the fantastical things that have warped their memories does not lessen the grief and trauma the children feel, and Tai often goes into crying fits in his hospital bed, demonstrating absolutely no concern with being a boy and crying, which is uncharacteristic for most boys his age. _

_The one time I was able to have him talk about his parents without running away to cry, he described them lovingly and didn't seem to mention any abuse, but I suspect that both children have replaced their memories to help cope, as he talks about being trapped in an evil world that periodically transformed into a monstrous, hellish place laden with monsters (a metaphor for the household, perhaps? Maybe one or both of his parents were mentally ill and/or had a substance abuse problem that turned them from a nasty person to violent), and he, his sister, and his parents are the only people in each other's lives, protecting and helping each other survive. The physical description of his father seems very monstrous (green skin, tusks, claws, golden eyes), but the description of his disposition paints the picture of a very kind, patient, and loving man who, despite the trials and tribulations of the world, does his best to make Tai and his sister happy and safe, providing an interesting juxtaposition in his idea of his father, hinting at deeply conflicted feelings for him. _

_His description of his mother is more realistic and is probably more honest to the truth of the situation, not just the children's fantasy. He talks about her as a very tired and stressed woman who sometimes had difficulty working past her own demons to show love to her children, sometimes coming off as cold and withholding, but who was extremely aggressive about keeping both of them safe, often shooting anything that even looked vaguely threatening near her children with a shotgun (the mechanics and effects of which Tai could describe with disturbing accuracy and dispassion), then turning right around and spanking the children for getting in that situation in the first place. When describing her less stressed moments, she had a warm side, demonstrated in her patiently teaching them how to read and write and passing on an enthusiasm for learning that both children still demonstrate as they ravage any of the fellow patients' books. She must have been a scientist of some sort and their father had to have had a background in medicine or biology, as they both have very strong math skills, comprehensive knowledge of first aid and emergency care with improvised tools, and a good grasp on most sciences. _

_He made no mention of family outside of his parents and his twin, though he demonstrated a small attachment to Laura and her father, which gives me hope that he will be able to learn the social skills needed to function._

_I'm fully confident that with time, separation from his sister, and therapy, Tai can be adjusted to the world as a whole and come to terms with his trauma._

"Mr. Kim? Are you alright?"

He became aware that he was holding the file hard enough to crinkle the paper and the knot had made itself tight in his throat. He loosened his grip, noting that he hadn't damaged anything, and closed the file, trying to ease the weight in his chest before speaking.

"I'm fine. I just find the report on his condition when found to be… disturbing."

Tai.

Soon forced himself to swallow, trying to numb the pain in his chest. He wasn't sure if he could manage reading Young's report at the moment.

He should have been there.

The boy didn't have to go through that kind of pain anymore, he told himself. He may not be able to give Young peace yet, but he could give it to Tai.

"Well, I wasn't working here that long ago. Was it bad?"

Soon shook himself out of the dark train of thought, looking up at the nurse. "Saddening." He held out the files. "Would you please copy these for me? I think it would be best if I read them more carefully later."

"Sure. The paper jam's probably sorted out."

She frowned sympathetically, taking the files and walking out of the archive, leaving him alone there. I probably wasn't standard procedure to allow a strange man to be alone in a room full of confidential medical files, but Soon really wasn't in the mood to critique anyone's professionalism.

That had really been more information than he could handle in one sitting. Mijung, Young, Tai…

No. He couldn't get lost in this line of thought right now. He had information that could be used to find out more about this place—names. Scarlet, Miriam, Billy, Laura, Josh, Hanna, Nora, Joey… No last names, so it wasn't much, but it was something, and apparently, they knew the girl Travis Grady had mentioned: Alessa. Everything seemed to tie in with that girl. Maybe he should be trying to find out more about her.

He wanted to find out more about the goblin who had taken care of his family too, but he tucked away the idea and any feelings associated with it. That was an issue he wouldn't touch yet. The implications were too emotionally charged.

Hm. He had almost forgotten what it was like to be personally involved with an issue he was trying to fix.

The nurse came back, smiling brightly and holding out two unmarked files. "Here you are, Mr. Kim."

That shook him out of the thoughts again. He looked up, giving a small smile and taking the files. "Thank you very much." He gave a gracious nod, trying to distract himself from the darkness pulling at his mind. "That is all I needed."

"Well, don't hesitate to come by if you need to know anything else!" she chirped, grinning. The darkness was pushed back.

Soon nodded again, the small smile becoming a touch more genuine, and left.

* * *

A/N: Yay, new chapter! :D Hope you enjoyed.


	6. Chapter 6

Girard was flicking through the pages of a tome on Silent Hill history when there was a knock on the door. The darkness expanded, getting so heavy that the wizard reached out mentally, checking to see if something had made it past the illusion he had made, but it didn't feel like it had.

There was another knock, more insistent. Girard stood up from the kitchen table, frowning tightly, and opened the door.

"Hope you don't mind. I brought a friend."

Cheryl brushed past him, crossing her arms across her chest, before Girard had a chance to respond. The man accompanying her was a little more polite.

"Sorry for turning up like this."

The man had a stubble and salt and pepper hair, obviously old with a weathered face and dark eyes. He wore a simple brown fedora and a old beaten brown leather coat, looking a little like one of the hard-bitten PIs that overran mystery novels and campaigns. Girard sized him up, frowning, and he must have picked up on the illusionist's suspicion.

"My name is Douglas Cartland." The man's voice was husky, obviously a long-time smoker, but it had a warmth that Girard had long since learned to associate with parents. Not the gushing warmth of an overbearing parent or even of a particularly affectionate parent, but warmth nonetheless. "I came because Cheryl likes to get into trouble, and I'm usually the one pulling her out of it."

"What's that? I didn't hear you over your broken leg!"

Cheryl's laugh sounded completely out of place, like it had belonged to a young woman but had been stolen and given to this world-wary one, but the sound still made Douglas smile.

"Now that was _once_, young lady!"

Cheryl spun around to face them after examining the kitchen, chuckling in a way that Girard hadn't thought she was capable of. "How did you even manage to get your leg broken by a woman half your size?"

The man chuckled, shrugging and holding up his hands. "You got me."

He let his hands drop and he looked at Girard, his face seeming a little warmer now. "May I come in?"

Girard frowned in confusion at their strange interaction, but stepped aside, gesturing for the man to pass, and Douglas stepped in with a gracious nod. "Thank you."

He smiled at Cheryl, shaking his head. "You see? _That's_ what good manners look like."

"Manners are overrated."

Cheryl sat down at the table, smirking, and Douglas took off his hat, revealing scruffy but relatively short hair, and it occurred to Girard how weirdly out of place he must look to these people. A poorly maintained beard, orange hair long enough to reach past his shoulders when in a ponytail, a tattoo of a purple dragon on his face… even in his own world, he stuck out. To them, he must look freakish.

Well, he'd never made a habit of worrying about what other people thought.

"Go ahead and sit down. I'm glad you're here and I don't have to muddle through this giant book on my own."

Girard sat down between Douglas and Cheryl, waiting for the older man to sit before he jerked his head towards the hall. "Also, keep it down. Kid's sleeping."

"Really? Wouldn't have pegged you for a father," Cheryl said, honest surprise flashing across her face.

"No, no, watching her for a friend."

He noticed his word choice the moment he said it. Friend? No, not a friend. Never again.

"That sounds more likely." Cheryl nodded towards Douglas, the smile falling off her face. "But down to business. Douglas was with me when we went to… that place. He knows more about the nitty-gritty stuff—he was actually curious about it when we left."

The man nodded in response, his expression becoming grim. "I got nosy. I wish I hadn't."

"That sounds promising," Girard drawled, glancing at the hallway as the darkness swelled. "But go on, then. The more information, the better."

"You have no idea what you're getting into." Douglas paused, grimacing, and reached into one of his jacket pockets. "First thing to know: Silent Hill is a resort town. It's ran by a cult called the Order."

He took out a piece of paper, smoothing it out on the table. "Everything strange about the place can be traced back to the Order. It's a monotheistic belief system based around the idea that God is going to be reborn by a divinely-touched human girl and then bring paradise to the world. It doesn't take much digging to find this," he gestured to the paper, grimacing, "their symbol."

Girard leaned forward, picking up the paper, then dropping it with a hiss of pain.

"Careful, it's hot," Cheryl said, a hint of dark humor in her voice, and Girard resisted the urge to glare before leaning forward and looking at the mark on the page.

It was two circles, one within the other, and outside the circles were four symbols in the North, East, West, and South places that he couldn't identify and between the circles were runes (two things that caught his gaze was an eye at the North mark and an eyeball'd scale at the West mark—there were specific images at the East and South marks, but he couldn't identify them, and all the other runes seemed to be part of an old alphabet). Within the inner circle there were three smaller circles arranged in a triangle formation with unidentified images between them and even more runes surrounding them.

"This is called the Halo of the Sun," Cheryl cut in, leaning back and crossing her arms. "I'm _not_ going to explain every last bit of it. All you need to know is that the two outer circles mean charity and resurrection while the three inner circles mean past, present, and future. This is useful information because this can be to your advantage, at a price."

Cheryl's face was grim as she leaned forward again, brown eyes boring into him. "You can use it to make yourself effectively immortal. No matter how many times you die, it won't be over. You'll just start again where you left off and you're free to continue what you were doing. The thing is, you can't turn it off." Her expression darkened. "It stays with you forever. If you've made the deal, no going back. The mark binds you to the power of the town, tying your soul there, and you'll be reincarnated constantly, trapped in hell. In short, it's a really sucky deal, if you ask me."

Girard grimaced. "Why are you telling me this if I'm never going to use it?"

"So you know to run fast when you see it." Cheryl jerked her head towards the hall. "And so you can stop whoever's been playing with it in this house."

"What?" Girard looked down at the mark, then back at Cheryl. "No one here has been playing with this kind of stuff. Not intentionally, at least."

"Someone who lives here's been marked with it, whether you see it or not." Cheryl looked towards the hall, her frown engraved on her face. "You know, I think I'd like to check on that kid you're looking after."

"No," Girard said a little too quickly, clenching a fist under the table. "The kid's sick. We're not involving her."

"Don't think you can hide it from me." Cheryl pushed her chair back.

Douglas frowned, standing up slowly. "Cheryl…"

"She's what I felt on you, isn't she? She's the next girl." The woman stood up, the room starting to get colder, and fog rolled slowly around the house, clouding up the windows. "You don't understand what it means to have her around. They'll murder you to get at her."

"We can take perfectly good care of ourselves, thanks." Girard stood up, cursing in his head. "She's _sleeping._ We're keeping this discussion between us."

"Oh yeah. Push away the only people who can help you." Cheryl cocked her head, giving him a scowl, and crossed her arms. "Sure, I can walk away. But if I do without seeing her, you're not getting anymore help from us."

Douglas frowned, but nodded reluctantly in agreement.

"And you and your friend will die when you go try to save him. So make your choice." Cheryl leered at him, the darkness swelling. "And make it quick."

Girard clenched his teeth, having to hold back the magic threatening to make his eyes glow. "That's low."

"Choose."

His throat constricted, but after a beat, he sighed. "Then I'm coming with you. I reserve the right to stop it the moment she gets scared or hurt."

"Then you're not coming." She walked forward, brushing against his arm, and it felt like he was on fire.

* * *

The only sound was his breathing. Breathing and his heartbeat pounding in his throat.

His ears were ringing and sticky streamers of blood obscured his vision, so for a moment, he was worried he was blind and deaf. But he couldn't be. He could hear the creaks in the walls and he could see the outline of the door. Sweat lined his face, the salt making the cuts burn, but he just couldn't care. Every tendon, every muscle, every little bone trembled with the combined tension and exhaustion.

Gods, he needed sleep, but he didn't know if he'd survive it.

Then the door he was hidden behind rattled.

His breath caught in his throat and he tightened his grip on his ax, his fingers aching and sending flares of pain in protest. Something was coming for him. He didn't know how much longer he could hold out like this.

But like hell was he going down without a fight.

The door swung open.

"Oh. It's just you."

His heart jumped in his throat briefly, but then his eyes adjusted, allowing him to see whoever was talking to him.

He stared out dully, the dim light just enough to illuminate the tiny human standing over his huddled body.

"You're bleeding." The little human backed up while leaning forward to look at him closer, frowning. "Are you hurt?"

Kraagor stared for a moment longer, then snapped himself out of it, forcing his legs to roll him out of the closet and standing up to his full height, the ringing in his ears receding to the point where what the girl said was mostly clear. "What are you doing here?"

His own voice sounded so foreign. Rough and raspier than usual.

He took a quick glance around the first-floor apartment he had run into. The glass windows were covered with a layer of dust, water damage and mildew covered the ceiling and walls, and the tiny kitchen attached to the main room was covered with rusted overturned pots and a fridge (presumably no longer working) that gave off the smell of rancid meat. It was nothing like the world he had been running around in a moment ago, save for the general layout. Where was the blood and breathing walls?

"Looking for someone," the little girl said coyly, tossing her blond ponytail over her shoulder. It was the kid he had been looking for before the world changed. It looked like the world had changed back. "Did you fall over and hurt yourself?"

Kraagor frowned at her, taking a moment to process the out-of-place innocence, and then quickly wiped away the blood and dirt from his face. No need to show the kid any unnecessary gore. With any luck, she wouldn't pay any attention to his ax's blade. "Uh, something like that."

The little girl stared at him, then stifled a yawn, shaking herself out. "I'm tired. Do you think it's okay for me to sleep here?"

He frowned deeply, beginning to wonder if this blond child had some kind of immunity to this place. "What's your name?"

"Laura. What's yours?"

Laura. Such a human name. "Kraagor."

She nodded, not looking particularly interested, and looked at the door besides the closet he had hidden in. "I'm going to sleep here, okay? And if the owner comes back, you can tell them that I was really tired from walking, right?"

"Uh…" Well, he couldn't exactly leave her to rot there, could he? Not with those monsters. And he certainly couldn't say she couldn't sleep when all her strength would be needed in this place. "Sure."

Laura nodded, yawning and stretching out her arms to the sky. "There aren't a lot of people around here. It's weird."

She let her arms fall and she pushed open the door, trotting in and lying on the bed within. She was sprawled on the covers, wrapping her arms around the pillow, and she fell asleep immediately.

Kraagor sat down, muscles trembling from exhaustion, and started his vigil.

* * *

"Mr. Draketooth? Mr. Draketooth, are you okay?"

Girard snapped awake, the little hand shaking his shoulder withdrawing abruptly, and he turned wildly in his seat to see the girl at his side. "Young?"

Young winced, backing up a little in surprise. "S-sorry. Were you napping?"

His first urge was to grab the girl and look her over for any weird bruises or scars from an occult ritual that crazy woman may have performed, but he struggled against it, trying to remind himself that he didn't want to scare her.

"No, it's fine. Why are you up?" He clenched his fists experimentally, then loosened them again. Whatever Cheryl did, it didn't feel like he had suffered any long-term effects by it. Or… or maybe that had just been a dream.

"…" She averted her eyes and rubbed her arm. "Nightmare."

"Oh."

He paused, frowning. Her face was darker than before. There was more contrast between the sickly pale of her cheeks and the darkness around her eyes. It was a little like someone had pulled out a little piece of her and made off with it, and now she was alone.

Girard closed his eyes, feeling out the magic in the room. The darkness was thicker now, like he was trying to live in caramel, and the air around the little girl was several degrees hotter than in the rest of the room.

"Mr. Draketooth?"

He opened his eyes again, remembering that he probably looked very strange to a kid who didn't know about magic and energies and stuff like that. She probably thought he was falling asleep again. "What was the nightmare about?"

Her eyebrows went up and she didn't answer for a moment, backing up a little and smoothing her shirt. "I… would rather not talk about it."

He frowned at her, propping his head up on his fist. Why the hell did he agree to watch over this kid? Yeah, he needed to get the paladin out of the house, but what the hell did he smoke to think that he could actually handle her when she was awake?

Girard averted his gaze, shying away from eye-contact, and put his hands on the table. "Your choice, kid." He hesitated, but what came next was purely impulse, as usual. "Want to see a trick?"

"Huh?"

It took him a moment before he looked back at the girl, focusing his eyes just a little above hers. "I traveled a lot. You pick up some things. Want to see a trick?"

Young sat down at the table, then nodded. "Yeah."

What the hell was he doing? Why was he entertaining the kid?

A little voice he had thought he had squashed urged him quietly. He owed it to her, it murmured. He didn't know what, but Cheryl probably did something to her, if Cheryl had even been there in the first place. How much was he willing to put this kid through?

He stifled a distasteful grimace and shook off the thoughts.

Girard leaned back, showing her his palms, then twisted his hand so she couldn't see it for a moment and when she could see it again, there was a little purple flower there. Her eyebrows went up slightly and Girard let the flower bob for a moment, looking it over.

"This is an amaranth. They call it the flower that never fades."

He covered it with his hand. "It's pretty special, even if it doesn't look like much. It's the flower that grows most around the Fountain of Youth. Sure, it looks like it dies sometimes, but it's only being remade as something else."

He moved his hand and the flower was gone, replaced by a butterfly with wings made of petals, and the butterfly immediately took off from his hand, fluttering up in the air. Young's mouth fell open and her eyes went wide, her hand reaching out of its own accord, and the butterfly landed on her palm, rubbing its feelers together.

"Oh my god!"

"Tell Soon to show you some of this stuff. I'm not the only one who knows party tricks."

Girard smiled at the sheer wonder in her expression before he caught himself, forcing the smile away and holding out his hand. The butterfly hopped off of the girl's palm and landed on his finger, the petals that made its wings falling away.

He covered the butterfly with his hand and blew, the petals flying everywhere on the table, and then showed her his empty hands. "But if I do anything more, then I'd just be showing off, wouldn't I?"

She stared at the petals as if she expected them all to jump up and do the Macarena, then looked at him, her eyes as big as golf balls. "That was… how did you do that?"

"If I tell you, it stops being special, doesn't it?" He winked, that smile sneaking back, and he had to wrestle to keep the warm feeling in his chest from rising. "Just something I learned. Sure, it's a pretty useless trick, but it gets smiles on people's faces."

She blinked, looking from him to the petals to him again. "And Mr. Kim knows how to do it too?"

"Not that trick. He learned different ones." Girard propped his head on his fists again. "We traveled in the same group. He spent most of his time learning more about different religions and sword techniques while I figured out new magic."

"Sword techniques?" Young frowned, picking up one of the petals and rubbing it between her fingers. "He uses swords?"

"He didn't tell you that?" Girard shrugged, leaning back and crossing his arms on the table. "He's a swordsman. So am I, but I don't specialize."

Apparently satisfied that the petal was real, Young looked up at the illusionist and cocked her head. "No offence, but why use swords when people have guns?"

He hesitated, wondering how much he should say. He had probably revealed too much as it stood. "You've noticed our weird accents, right?"

Young only cocked her head a little further. "I thought it'd be rude to point them out."

"Well, we come from very isolated communities. People don't use guns there. Besides…" he shrugged, sweeping the petals into his hand to clean up the tabletop, "I've never liked depending on ranged weapons, and neither has Soon. You need ammunition. Ammunition has a bad habit of running out at bad moments when you're traveling for long periods of time away from any kind of store."

Young frowned, and it occurred to Girard that he was enjoying the conversation. He had to stop. As usual, his impulses had only led him into doing stupid stuff.

"You guys talk a lot about traveling together. Where did you go?"

Girard withdrew, memories beginning to cloud his mind, and he averted his eyes. "Ask your father about it. He has a better memory."

There was a pause.

Then, in a small voice, "Mr. Kim isn't my father, sir."

Girard's eyebrows went up and he looked at the girl again.

"Not by blood and not emotionally, at least not yet. I like him and I'm glad for what he's done for me and my brother, but I'm not ready for that."

Shit. He'd called Soon their father again, didn't he? He really needed to stop doing that.

"Right. Of course. Adoptive father, then." Girard stood up. At least he could pass it off as a slip of the tongue. "Whatever you want to call him, ask him. I'm serious when I say he has a better memory of it, but that may be because I had a bad habit of getting concussions a lot."

That provoked a strange look.

"Probably dropped a few IQ points because of it, but that's the price you pay." Girard paused, wondering what he should do next. "Have you eaten anything?"

"I'm not very hungry, thank you."

Young stood up, hugging herself to conserve heat, and walked to the hall. "I'm going to try to sleep again. I had a good dream before that nightmare, so maybe I'll have another one."

Girard winced.

She disappeared in her room.

She wouldn't have any good dreams. He had wasted one nap. He wouldn't waste another.

* * *

Yutrin pushed the door to the Baldwin Mansion open after sending several paranoid glances behind him, slipping inside and closing the entrance behind him quickly. Mijung hadn't latched the door behind him when he left—a very stupid thing to do, but she had probably been worried he would come back at a time when she was asleep and unable to hear his knocking—so he latched up the door tightly.

The wind whistled through the front room. The walls creaked with every step he took, highlighting how big this place was and how little he was in comparison. This world had a way of making him feel small and useless.

He started walking up the stairs to the second floor, the wood groaning under his feet, and he shivered from the chilly air.

There was a squeak of door hinges and then quick tapping of light footsteps. "Yutrin?"

Mijung appeared around the corner, a gun in her hand and her shoulders tense, but the moment she saw him, she relaxed and her mouth turned up in a relieved smile. "Yutrin!"

She dropped the gun on the ground and she ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him deeply. After a moment's hesitation, he wrapped his arms around her waist, his grip looser than usual, and kissed her back.

She pulled away after a few seconds, cupping his face in her hands and caressing his cheeks. "I was so worried you wouldn't come back…" She kissed him again, her eyes a little wet. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. It wasn't right for me to say any of that…"

"Mijung, let's not talk about it." He couldn't quite look her in the eye and his tone came out more curt than he meant, but he couldn't stop himself. Mijung bit her lip, her eyes welling despite her best efforts, but Yutrin couldn't forgive her, even though he knew he should. She hadn't said anything but the truth. It was his fault if she couldn't handle it.

"Yutrin… You know I…"

The pain in her voice managed to shake him enough to have a little mercy, even if he still couldn't look her in the eye. Talking would never make her feel better, not when he was like this.

And he had to make her feel better.

Yutrin kissed her again, this time rubbing her hips gently and growling low in his chest. Her breathing hitched, then she started to cling tighter, rubbing her tongue against his and letting her hands drift to his chest.

That's how it always worked. When one was stressed or upset, the other screwed them, like how one oils a machine. When Yutrin starts eyeing the knives too intently, Mijung pulls him aside and starts rubbing herself against him. When Mijung starts playing with her gun, Yutrin takes it away and starts licking her neck. The best way they knew how to distract each other. The only form of comfort they had the resources to give.

Obligation. That was all it was. Yutrin couldn't help but wonder bitterly if he'd ever have a chance to sleep with a woman because he loved her, or if this world had stolen even that from him.

He kept kissing her, but the warmth was gone.

* * *

A/N: My attention span is a little blah right now for medical reasons, so I blame that if this is poorly edited. :P Hope you enjoyed.


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